Eight years and eleven months ago, a 10-year-old girl had gone missing from her house in Bhajanpura in North-east Delhi. By a stroke of luck, a call from a Kanpur-based NGO working towards the rehabilitation of lost girls helped Delhi Police in tracing the girl and reuniting her with her family. However, like any story, this one too was full of twists.
While the Delhi Police was able to match the details of the missing girl with the information given in the FIR lodged by the girl’s father, the real problem was tracing the girl’s father who had changed his Delhi address and contact numbers.
In 2008, Kedarnath had lodged a missing complaint about her then ten-year old-daughter Nisha (name changed).
Living in Bhajanpura, Kedarnath approached local police again and again but in vain. Assuming that his daughter has been kidnapped, he even filed a kidnapping case in the same police station. Failing to trace the girl, the case was shut down in 2009. Years passed but Nisha could not be found.
On March 12, cops at Bhajanpura got a call from a Kanpur-based child home that a girl who the activists had found abandoned at a public place in Kanpur informed them that she has a permanent home in Agra but lived in Delhi for some time. Based on which, they called Delhi Police.
With a lot of painstaking effort by the police, they were able to locate the girl’s aunt’s address. Since they were unable to trace Kedarnath, they used extensive chain of informers to trace Nisha’s aunt. On reaching her aunt’s house, cops got to know that Kedarnath, a native of Agra had gone back to live there.
Once the police traced Kedarnath, they informed him about the call which they got from Kanpur Child Home.
“A team of police led by ACP Sandeep Lamba then took Kedarnath to Kanpur and reunited him with his daughter. This was one of the few cases where a missing case lodged eight years ago was solved in such a manner,” said Ajit Kumar Singla, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-east).
After a detailed procedure by Kanpur City Child Welfare Committee, Nisha was finally handed over to the family.