New Delhi, January 4
The abuse and killing of at least 20 children in Nitharai Village in Noida, that shocked the nation, figured in the Union Cabinet meet presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here today.
“What has happened is unfortunate and a blot on civilised society,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi told reporters after the meeting.
He claimed that the Uttar Pradesh Government had “accepted” prima facie that its police machinery was involved in the chilling incident and suggested that a “high-level” probe by a sitting judge.
Mr Dasmunshi said said the probe should “not only find the culprits, but also the nexus.”
“By taking action against the police, by suspending or sacking so many of them, the state government has prima facie accepted their involvement,” he said, adding that there was a “decisive fault” on the part of the police department.
The minister said the Noida killings was not part of the Cabinet agenda, but the “Home Minister is very concerned.” Dasmunshi described the incident as “shocking” and “shameful”, he asked the Mulayam Singh government to be transparent in its investigation. While Mulayam Singh has not ruled out a CBI probe into the killings, the Union Women and Child Development Ministry has set up a committee to investigate the killings. The police last week had unearthed remains of a number of children - at least 20, out of which 12 have been identified - from a drain behind a bungalow near Nithari village in Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
The owner of the house, Moninder Singh Pandher, and his domestic servant, Surender Kohli, have been arrested and charged with kidnapping, raping and killing the victims and then dumping their dismembered bodies in drains. DNA testing is being done to identify the victims, while parents of five potential victims say they recognised clothes and shoes, stuffed in a bag, that were recovered along with the remains.
