INDIA:India's federal government yesterday ordered an inquiry into official negligence in investigating a series of molestations and murders of at least 17 minors and teenage girls in an upmarket New Delhi suburb, shocking the country.
Relatives of the victims, almost all of them poor migrant labourers or domestic servants, claim police in Noida had over the past two years ignored their repeated pleas to investigate the disappearance of some 40 children, aged between six and 12. Noida is a hub for global software companies in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state.
The state police have already suspended seven mid- and lower-ranking officers for inaction over the complaints.
But the nationwide furore has prompted the federal authorities to instruct a committee of home ministry and child welfare officers to investigate the matter further and report in two weeks.
"There is no denying that this was a case of gross laxity, negligence and failure on the part of some policemen," state director general of police Bua Singh admitted. Those found guilty would be severely punished, he said.
The murders came to light last Friday after police began excavating human remains from a drain adjoining a palatial house in Noida while investigating a related case. So far the authorities claim to have dug up the remains of at least 17 people, mostly children and young girls.
As the remains were uncovered, hundreds of locals, including distraught parents of the missing children, clashed with police, enraged over their continued indifference to their complaints. Meanwhile, the house owner Moninder Singh Pandher, a wealthy businessman in his late 40s, and Surender Kohli, his servant, have been arrested and charged with kidnapping, raping and killing their victims before dumping their dismembered bodies in sacks in the nearby, debris-choked drain.
Police said Mr Kohli had confessed to killing 10 children and five women when confronted with photographs during questioning.
Noida police chief RKS Rathore said Pandher was "partial" to prostitutes and when none were available he had Kohli lure children from the nearby poor neighbourhood by promising them chocolates and toys.
He would also reportedly seek out poor young women with the promise of work before raping and killing them.
Police are also investigating the possibility that Pandher and Kohli may have been abducting the children for their body parts which they could have sold for large sums in India and overseas through an organised syndicate.
Relatives of the missing children claim to have seen blood stains in a bathroom, and children's clothes, shoes and slippers piled in one of the rooms in the bungalow.
DNA testing is being carried out to identify the victims. But parents of at least five claim to have recognised the clothes and shoes of their offspring recovered along with their remains.
Police indifference to the plight of the parents has yet again triggered a nationwide debate on the persistent callousness of India's officialdom that rarely, if at all, responds to complaints by the dispossessed who constitute the majority of the country's population of more than 1.10 billion.