‘I pleaded with cops to find my husband, but no one listened

Express news service : New Delhi, Fri, Jan 27, 2012

The inter-state coordination and use of ZIP net software to share information, which the Delhi Police highlights among its strenghts, failed the test when a 30-year-old woman knocked on the doors of a police station at least 50 times in the last five months searching for her missing husband. Sarita, mother of three, received no news of her husband, even though his body had been lying abandoned in a mortuary all the while.

Sarita sat alone at her one-room rented house in West Delhi’s Uttam Nagar, trying hard to come to terms with the harassment she faced from the police. Her husband Saroj was found in an unconscious state by the police officials of the Nihal Vihar station in September last year. Saroj died at the hospital on September 18, but instead of trying to trace his family, police packed off his body to DDU Hospital mortuary.

“In the last six months, I must have been to the Uttam Nagar police station at least four times a week. The duty officials stopped listening to my plea after the first two visits. I thought they would have a change of heart and make an effort to trace my husband, but they never bothered to check the other police stations. One of them also threw me out of the police station two months ago,” she said.

Married at a young age, Sarita said she had spent 19 years with her husband and regretted the evening of September 2 when she allowed him to go out and meet his friends.

Additional Commissioner of Police of the district, V Renganathan, told the family that on September 4 Saroj was found in an inebriated state near a drain in Nihal Vihar. He did inform the police about his father’s name and locality where he lived in Uttam Nagar, but police did not work on the information.

It was only during a routine police check at DDU Hospital police post last time that the information about the body was conveyed to other police stations and Saroj’s family was traced.

Two years ago, Sarita had lost her son when he fell off the terrace while playing with his friends.

Her husband was the only breadwinner in the family, and Sarita is worried about the future of her children. Saroj worked at a factory and earned Rs 5,000 per month. “There is no one to take care of us. I have taken loans from my neighbours to pay for the fare of autos for my trips to the police station. We will go back to our village now,” she said.

Two ASIs from the Nihal Vihar police station and a head constable from Uttam Nagar police station have been suspended. However, no action has been taken against the SHOs of both the police stations. The police are yet to ascertain the cause of Saroj’s death.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/i-pleaded-with-cops-to-find-my-husband-but-no-one-listened/904408/0