A minor girl belonging to a Dalit family has been reported missing from her residence in the Sultanpuri area of New Delhi for two weeks now. The victim’s family alleges that despite naming the suspect, in this case, Saddam Ansari, as confirmed by an eye-witness, the police refused to mention his name in the FIR registered by them, objecting to which the police accused the family of being ‘communal’, reported Swati Goel Sharma, a Journalist with Swarajya.
According to the family’s statement in the FIR, their 14-year-old daughter, a Class VIII student, accompanied by her two elder sisters went to school like any other day on 13th August but did not return home.
An exclusive report by Swarajya mentions that when the mother of the missing minor, accompanied by two social activists helping the victim’s family, asked the police for an explanation as to why the name of the suspect was not mentioned in the FIR, the police, in turn, incriminated them of giving a ‘communal colour’ to the case. The family says that the officers told them that the girl must have eloped with her lover.
The minor girl’s mother said that her daughter was accompanied by her two sisters, both minors, on her way to school. “On their way, Saddam stopped the three. Since Saddam was a neighbour, this did not raise suspicion. But after talking to them for a while, Saddam asked the two elder daughters to leave. When they resisted, he threatened them with dire consequences. The girls came home and told me the whole story. My daughter has been missing since,” she said.
“Saddam is also missing from his house since that day,” the mother said.
Satish Vaid, an activist, who came to know about the case through social media and met the victim’s family on 22nd August, said, “I was shocked to see in the FIR that the police had neither mentioned the suspect’s name nor attached documents that showed the victim was a minor,” he said. “The police has not even invoked the SC/ST Act in the case despite the family telling them so.”
Vashi Sharma, another activist helping the victim’s family said, “all this while, they (the police) had neither booked the accused nor initiated any investigation. It was only after our intervention that they even retrieved the call details of the victim.”
Saddam Ansari (30) kidnapped Dalit Hindu girl (14) from Sultanpuri, Delhi on 13th Aug. Girl has not returned yet. @agniveer met family. Police refused to name boy in FIR despite eyewitnesses. No urgency shown. Mother is in tears. This is reality of Islamic Republic of India. pic.twitter.com/psOMXeGfKb
— Vashi Sharma (@VashiMant) August 25, 2018
The girl’s mother asserted that they are very scared to stay in the Muslim dominated area, and they will leave the area once her daughter is found. As being the only Hindu family living there, they are under constant threat.
She also confirmed that the police had also been humiliating them at every step and putting in no efforts to locate her missing daughter, they even asked money for petrol to carry out search operations.
