28 January,2010 08:34 AM IST | | Shashank Shekhar
The CBI did not investigate the lapses by any public authority concerned in the Nithari killings probe
Yet another glaring lapse on behalf of the Central Bureau of Investigation has come to light in its investigations into the Nithari killings.
The CBI on January 22, in response to an RTI plea filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra, said it did not carry out any investigations whatsoever regarding the failure of the three agencies to act on time and save lives.
"We need to let the world know how officials from our governance system, who could have saved many lives if they had gone about their duties properly, have all gone scot-free. But, it is really shocking to see that even the CBI did not investigate the lapses by public authorities which could have averted Nithari killings or could have saved many innocent children," Commodore Batra told MiD DAY.
Noida Police
In explanations given to the National Commission for Women (NCW) through an action taken report on six girls missing from Nithari village in 2005, the Noida police mentioned that teams were sent to various places like Muzaffarnagar, Faridabad and Gurgaon, among other cities in the state and elsewhere in the country.
Police records, according to information received in a letter under an RTI application on January 4 2007, said that no officer has ever claimed reimbursements after such visits. Which means that either the visits did not take place or the officials made the visits but did not spend anything on them.
"It is amazing how officers of the (Noida) police kept paying for all the tours from their own pockets. They were either too concerned or no such search attempts were ever made," Batra said.
Noida Authority
The Noida Authority claimed that drains around Moninder Singh Pandher's residence - House Number D-5, Sector 31, Noida - were cleaned between December 20 and 23, 2006, just six days before the Nithari killings became public knowledge. According to Noida Authority, drains were being cleaned every 15-30 days and workers never found anything unusual there.
The Authority's response, to an RTI plea, also refers to an important point which was apparently overlooked by everyone involved in the Nithari investigations - the waste collected from the drains around house D-5 was deposited in the waste dump situated in Sector 54, Noida.
In its report on the Nithari killings, a committee set up by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) severely indicted the Noida Authority. "In the Nithari case, if the administration had cleaned the sewerage system on a regular basis, the bodies would have been discovered much earlier and probably some deaths could have been prevented," the report states. Clearly, Noida Authority's laxity contributed to the heinous crime in Nithari continuing unchecked.
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| Women's panel |
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According to the information provided by the NCW in response to an RTI application, after receiving several complaints, the NCW constituted a one-member committee on August 10, 2006 to look into the case. The sole committee member - Nirmala Venkatesh - first visited Nithari on August 24, 14 days after she was appointed. |
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