M A I N   N E W S

Nithari: More bones found
Tribune News Service

Noida, January 16
CBI teams have recovered about 40 rotten bags containing skeletal remains in different stages of decay from the drain in front of the house of Moninder Singh Pandher.

The CBI is reportedly aghast at the slipshod investigations conducted by the UP police, according to observers. The CBI team had, in a raid on Moninder Singh's company in Sector-2, Noida, reportedly seized important documents. The CBI had been handed over the Nithari case on January 10 in which 19 FIRs had been registered.

It had involved top forensic experts from Delhi's AIIMS and the AP Forensic Science Laboratory, who have been closely monitoring the collection of evidence from the house and the drain in front of it.

A spokesman of the CBI said apart from D-5 some other premises of the accused had also been raided which had yielded vital information.

What is baffling is that the UP police had fished out 19 bags containing human bones from the drain in front of D-5, but when the CBI again undertook the digging and cleaning the drain, 40 bags containing human bones and parts of skeletons were recovered.

All human parts and bones have been sent for the post-mortem by the CBI. Officials of the CBI said only after the receipt of the post-mortem and DNA test reports, it could be asserted with surety about the specific individuals.

The CBI had collected samples from relatives of the children and women killed in Nithari which will be matched through advance forensic technologies with the DNA of the skeletons and other parts. Even bones handed over by the UP police have also been sent for investigations, it is understood.

The CBI has put some 30 officers and staff on Nithari investigations under a Joint Director.

No Noida: Kids of Bhiwandi safe 
Tribune News Service

Mumbai, January 16
More than a week after the police formed special teams to trace the 43 missing children from Bhiwandi near here, most of them have been found. The police said 22 of the 43 children have returned home or have been traced while efforts are on to find the whereabouts of the rest. All children traced so far were runaways and had returned home of their own will or had found jobs in different parts of Mumbai and Thane, police said.

Following the media coverage of the killings of nearly 40 children at Nithari near NOIDA in Delhi, the parents of the missing children from Bhiwandi panicked and forced top police officials to trace them. After the parents accused local police stations of indifference to the missing children, top police officials ordered special investigating teams to be set up to trace the missing kids.

According to the police, many children had already been picked up by police and sent to juvenile homes. They have been reunited with their parents. In a few cases parents who reported their children missing did not revert back to the police even after the children had returned home.

All the children traced so far were between 14 and 16 years of age.

However, no details about the whereabouts of some of the younger children are yet available. According to the Bhiwandi police, eight of the missing children are below the age of 12.