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Delhi

A year after disappearance, no signs of Najeeb Ahmed

The case had been, on May 16, transferred to the CBI from the Delhi Police.

NEW DELHI: Exactly a year after Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Najeeb Ahmed went missing from the campus following a scuffle with fellow students, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – which had taken over the probe into his mysterious disappearance from Delhi Police – remains clueless.
After the Delhi High Court was not satisfied with the progress made by Delhi Police in the case, it was transferred it to the central probe agency on May 16 this year.
27-year-old Najeeb, a student of M.Sc. Biotechnology, had gone missing from JNU's Mahi-Mandvi hostel on October 15, 2016. His family and friends had stated that before his disappearance, Najeeb had an altercation with several students, allegedly affiliated to the right wing student political outfit the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
Today, his family members continue running from pillar to post to trace him.
The high court had directed police to "explore all angles" and "cut across political barriers" to trace the young man, saying no one could just vanish from the heart of the national Capital.
However, despite pressing 600 personnel and several sniffer dogs into action, the police failed to sniff out any leads.
This prompted the high court to suggest other methods, such as polygraph (lie detector) tests of the nine students suspected to be behind Najeeb's disappearance, as they had allegedly beaten him up before he went missing.
Though the police sent notices to the nine students, asking them to appear for a polygraph test, the students ignored the same and subsequently moved the trial court, challenging the step taken by the investigating agency.
Najeeb's family, meanwhile, alleged in the court that they were being harassed by Delhi Police, which was conducting pre-dawn searches at their house in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh.
Dissatisfied with the lack of progress in the probe, the family later demanded that the probe be handed over to another agency.
In March this year, even the high court admitted that it was "foxed" by the lack of information on Najeeb's whereabouts. It demanded an answer from the police "one way or the other" on Najeeb's fate, saying that as far as the probe was concerned, the only thing happening was paperwork.
Later, the police filed a charge-sheet against a man, who was arrested for allegedly making a ransom call to Najeeb's relatives, demanding Rs 20 lakh for his release.
His family's pleas to transfer the probe were finally answered and the high court told Delhi Police to transfer it to CBI.
Recently, the CBI counsel had informed the court that the agency had examined 26 people, including JNU officials, staff, Najeeb's friends, colleagues and those who had issues with him, during its investigation.
The agency also told the court that the matter was widely publicised in 12 cities and that several mortuaries were also being monitored.
Additionally, last one year's railway records of passengers of the same name and age as that of the missing student had been called for, it told the high court, which is slated to hear the matter on Monday.
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