After Swarajya Report, Child Rights Commission Directs Begusarai Police To Take Action In Minor Girl’s Abduction
The Commission asked the Begusarai police chief to be present in its New Delhi office on 10 December with an inquiry report into the case.
On 2 December, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) wrote to police commissioner of Begusarai district in Bihar, directing him to take action in a case of alleged abduction of a minor girl recently reported by Swarajya.
Swarajya reported that a family in Dumri block of Muffasil police jurisdiction gave a complaint to the police that their 17-year-old daughter was kidnapped by her tutor, Mohammad Jaseem alias Sameer, on 20 November.
The complaint by the girl’s mother said that when her daughter didn’t return from her coaching centre on time, she went to the centre for inquiry. She was informed that the girl had left the centre with Jaseem an hour ago.
The police filed a first information report (number 612/19) and booked the accused under IPC sections 366 and 364.
Two weeks on, the girl remains missing.
An activist, AS Santosh, who introduces himself as working president of a non-government organisation named Legal Rights Protection Forum, took note of the Swarajya report and approached the child rights body on 30 November. Santosh wrote to top cops in Bihar and the national women commission too, but received no reply.
His letter to NCPCR, which gave the link of the Swarajya report, said,
“...Till date there is no progress in the investigation by police. The girl’s family accuses the police of inaction. They say the cops have made little efforts to recover the girl and even ignored whatever information the family has unearthed so far. We formally approached Superintendent of Police (Begusarai District - Bihar), Director General of Police (Bihar) and National Commission for Women explaining the matter (kindly refer below mail) but there is no proper response...”
The NCPCR, in its letter, asked the Begusarai police chief to be present in its New Delhi office on 10 December with an inquiry report into the case.
It’s pertinent to mention here that when the parents of the girl went to the tutor’s house on the day of the alleged abduction, his parents showed them documents suggesting that the girl - who belongs to a backward Hindu caste - converted to Islam a year ago and married Jaseem in a mosque In Lakhminia area.
The family told this correspondent that they were kept in the dark about the conversion and the nikah all this while.
Documents included a notorised affidavit by the girl, declaring that she had converted to Islam on her own will, changed her name to Nazma Khatoon and married Jaseem.
The affidavit mentioned her year of birth as 2000 even as the girl’s Aadhaar card says it’s 2002.
Another document showed that 26-year-old Jaseem had filed a ‘sanah’ in Begusarai district court against’s the girl’s father on June 26 2019, saying that the latter was pressuring the couple to separate against the girl’s wishes.
Curiously, an officer at Muffasil police station, when asked, told this correspondent that he was not aware of any such document.
The girl’s parents, on the other hand, say that the cops not only ignored the documents when presented, but also are doing nothing to track the girl.