M A I N   N E W S

Five kids still missing, says police
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Muktsar, January 11
The recovery of decomposed bodies of four children from an abandoned rice sheller here has led to apprehensions among parents of five other missing children that their wards could have met with the same fate. They are now camping at various city police stations with trepidation that their children, too, could have been slained by some psychopath.

In wake of the four killings the police has come up with a list of nine missing children, including the four whose bodies were found in the sheller, are mentioned. Though sources in the Intelligence Bureau say the number of missing children could be more than 20.

The other missing, besides the four killed children, include 13-year-old Bubbly, a daughter of Brij Lal who resides at Kothli road here. She had gone missing on October 14 last year. Narayan (11), a son of Pargat Singh of Lahorian Street reportedly went missing on August 25. Sarita (7) daughter of Des Raj, a migrant labourer from Uttar Pradesh was reported missing on September 9. The name of Kulwinder Singh, aged 12 and a son of Gura Singh of Poolkot village was the next to figure on the list, followed by the names of the four children from the slums adjoining the Karnail Cinema, who were found murdered in the sheller, last Tuesday. These were identified as Rattni (14), Achki, alias Ashique (9), Satbir, alias Gathiya (10) and Puran, alias Bhola (9).

After the matter was widely reported in the media, Darbara Singh from Mahiraj village also approached the local police and lodged a complaint yesterday that his 7-year-old son Dharampreet was missing since December 2 last year.

Speaking to The Tribune SSP G Nageshwar Rao said immediately after the Nithari episode he had constituted a special team to take up the cases of missing children on a priority basis. However, before the special team could meet some success in tracing the missing children, a group of constables had discovered the decomposed bodies of the four children from the sheller, where they had gone to pitch tents in view of upcoming Maghi Mela.

The SSP said that the police was also exploring if the children had been kidnapped for the purpose of selling them in the Middle East countries where children are used as jockeys for camel races. However, so far nothing concrete had been found to ascertain this aspect of investigations, Mr Rao said.

Meanwhile, sources in the Intelligence Bureau claimed that there were more than 20 children missing in the district. These children have been missing for the last three years.

The Inspector General of Police (Bathinda zone), Mr V. K. Bhawra, said that the district police had been asked to compile the details of the missing children. Besides, special police teams are also being constituted to trace those still missing, the IG said.

In the meantime, police headquarters at Chandigarh have asked all district police chiefs to prepare and submit reports about the missing children in their areas.

In Muktsar bodies of the four children were consigned to flames this morning at the local cremation ground in presence of top functionaries of the district police, the civil administration and some local politicians. Postmortem confirms strangulation

Meanwhile, the postmortem reports have confirmed strangulation of the victims. The reports that came late in the evening, confirmed that strangulation had led to the death of all four victims. However, it is yet to be confirmed whether the victims had been sexually abused. Samples from the bodies of the four children were collected and sent for chemical examination to the State Chemical Laboratory, Patiala.

The SSP said that he had been informed that it would take at least one to three months for the final reports to come in, and only after that the police would be able to make sure whether the children were sexually abused or not.

DNA samples taken

A panel of doctors that conducted the postmortem on the bodies also collected samples for DNA test that was required to ascertain the parentage of the children, as these bodies were beyond recognition and their parents had identified them only after looking at their clothes. The police said it did not want to take any chances in this case. The DNA tests will also be performed on the blood samples collected from the crime scene.