Delhi, the capital of the country, is also turning out to be the "kidnapping capital of India." Several hundred girls are kidnapped here every year. In most cases the police show the kidnapped persons as lost. Strangely, as the number of such cases has risen in the recent years the police have tried to cope with the problem by omitting many of them from their annual records.

This is perhaps the reason why police records show the incidence of kidnapping decreasing over the last couple of years. This is also why the police fail to take note of even the Nithari case in nearby NOIDA where dozens of children were raped, tortured and cut to pieces by two maniacs.

Generally the police come to the conclusion without taking the trouble of investigation that the kidnapped girls had in fact eloped with their lovers and got married to them somewhere. If they register a case of kidnapping they would have to work hard to crack the case, but if they make it a case of "lost person" the onus of finding her would be on her family. That is why they decide to register a lost person case.

According to the National Crime Record Bureau as many as 1209 kidnapping cases were recorded in Delhi in 2004, out of which 827 were related to the kidnapping of girls. In 2005 there were 1590 recorded cases of kidnapping. According to the Delhi Police Missing Squad in 2006 1170 girl children and adolescent girls disappearance in Delhi.

These statistics go on to show how unsafe the country’s capital is for young women and girls.
 

MOHAMMED ATUAR RAHMAN