Missing person: In surprise checks, laxity found in few police stations

New Delhi: In order to check the alertness of their staff in the cases related to missing persons, Delhi Police conducted surprise inspections in more than 50 police stations.

Sources said that negligence was found in few police stations.

Police sources told Millennium Post that a report of the surprise inspections was sent to Delhi Police Headquarters (PHQ). The checking was conducted earlier this year under the theme of "missing persons, promptness in the registration of cases and behaviour towards complainants."

Adding further, sources revealed for the purpose, a methodology was adopted by the checking officers in which they visited the police station assigned to them.

"The officers picked up random cases of missing persons and reviewed their investigation. They also examined the missing person register," sources said.

After reviewing all the criteria, total marks/grading points of maximum 10 were awarded by checking officers to the police stations as per the satisfaction level of the complainants.

Sources added that five police stations were awarded low grade after negligence of their cops were found in handling missing cases.

"In one of the missing cases, it was revealed that no sincere efforts were made IO during the perusal of case file by checking officer," said sources.

Sources further revealed that negligence was found in another case in which three years old girl went missing from the hospital.

The case was supposed to sent to the AHTU for further investigation but it was found undone.

During one of the surprise checks, several reminders were given to the investigating officer (IO) but the case file was not produced before the checking officer for the perusal.

"The officer wrote in his report that there seems to be an effort to avoid inspection of the case file for the obvious reason as it shows that no sincere efforts have been made in the investigation. The IO in the case was transferred but has not returned the case file to police station record," sources added.

"There were no efforts were made to trace the missing child by police personnel. No hue and cry notices, no newspaper publication issued by the IO," the checking officer wrote in the inspection report of another police station.