Kidnappers again on the prowl in Bihar
After a brief lull, kidnapping teenagers for ransom has become rampant in the state, thanks to the lackadaisical attitude of the “men in khaki.”
In less than a fortnight, three teenage boys have been abducted from different parts of the state capital. Ironically, the police, who failed to make any breakthrough in any one of the case, are busy passing the buck on the parents, terming kidnapping “wilful disappearance.”
Grandfather of one of the victims, 16-year-old Saurabh, who went missing from the Gardanibagh area in Patna on November 20, accuses the police of doing little to trace the boy.
A day after Saurabh went missing, a ransom call was made by the abductors to his grandfather. However, the police officer concerned took nearly 72 hours to react to the FIR lodged in this connection. Action came only after Bihar Director General of Police Abhayanand reprimanded the officer-in-charge for his lax approach. Though there was no headway in the case even after a fortnight, the police were quick to put blame on the parents of the missing boy.
“We may not have been able to trace the boy. But his father knows everything,” Dinesh Singh, officer-in-charge of Gardanibagh police station said.
Lamenting the approach of the police, the victim’s grandfather said, “if they (police) think my son is behind the abduction of Saurabh, why aren’t they arresting him? The police should do something.”
The police are still groping in the dark in the case of two other cases. Rishikesh (14) and Rahul (12), who are said to be missing since December 2 from the Kankarbagh area, are still untraceable. The families of Rishikesh and Rahul fear that if the police could not trace the duo at the earliest, chances are that they might also meet the same fate of Nitish, whose body was found near Gopalganj recently.
