More 'Ruchikas' await justice in UP

Shashi was close to the then Uttar Pradesh minister Anand Sen, and it was alleged by her hapless parents that she was killed on his instructions.

Despite persistent pleas by the parents, the higher-ups in the police department initially tried to hush up the matter. “The police did not make sincere efforts to trace the body of my daughter,” said Shashi’s father Yogendra Prasad.

Although the minister was arrested after the matter was taken up by the media and social organisations, police investigation left several questions unanswered.

“Till date police have not subjected Anand Sen to narco test,” Prasad said to buttress his contention that the investigation was not impartial. “Our demand for a CBI probe was also overlooked,” he said. The case still lingers in the lower court. The trial is yet to begin.
Similarly, Kavita, a young lecturer at a university in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut town disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2006 and still remains untraced though her parents and relatives are certain that she was killed by the goons of a powerful UP minister. “We are certain that the minister hatched the conspiracy with his henchmen to eliminate Kavita,” alleges Kavita’s brother Satish Chaudhary.

Interestingly, one of the key accused in the murder case, Ravinder Pradhan, died in Ghaziabad’s Dasna jail under mysterious circumstances. It was alleged that Pradhan was killed as he knew those who were behind Kavita’s murder.

In both the cases the girls were close to powerful politicians and were allegedly eliminated after they exerted pressure upon them (their politician friends) to tie the nuptial knot after they became pregnant.