Police expands search for woman missing from Delhi metro station

The Delhi High Court was on Wednesday informed that the police would expand its search to neighbouring states for a hearing and speech impaired woman who went missing from a metro station here last week.

A division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Deepa Sharma took suo motu cognizance of a media report about the 21-year-old missing woman who couldn't get out of the Metro at Jahangirpuri station where her mother and sister de-boarded. She was later seen in a CCTV footage coming out of the next metro station in Adarsh Nagar.

The court asked police to investigate if the woman may have been abducted.

Advocate Rahul Mehra appearing for police said the woman was vulnerable and there were chances that she was kidnapped.

The police said it would conduct searches at red light areas and other places and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted to find the missing woman.

Mehra said the missing woman's photograph will be uploaded on social media sites. "We have planned to put her photograph on three-seater auto rickshaws."

Police also it would expand its jurisdiction to search for the woman in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.

The bench also pulled up the Delhi Metro and CISF that maintains security at the metro for allowing the woman to come out without a token.

"They must be hauled up. It appears from the reports that she was struggling to pass the security gate without token. How could a person who doesn't have token go outside the gate without token?

"Had they been vigilant such sort of incident would have never happened. It's a vital issue, they must have been vigilant," the bench said.

The court would hear the case next on May 11.