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Police Chief Admits 'Laxity'
over Serial Killings
Lucknow,
Dec 31 (IANS) Admitting "laxity" and "negligence" by his men, Uttar
Pradesh police chief Bua Singh Sunday ordered a high-level probe
into the sexual abuse and serial killings of several children in
Noida.
Singh has also ordered the suspension of five officers who were in
charge of the police in the area close to the Indian capital where
the horrendous crime took place over a period of two years.
"We have suspended two station officers and three sub-inspectors who
were posted at the police outpost and police stations concerned
while the present station officer has been transferred since he had
been there for only about two months," the director general of
police told IANS here.
"The probe will be carried out by an officer of the rank of
additional director general, who has been asked to submit his report
within a week," he said. "Once we have the report, action will
follow against other police officials."
The Noida police have come under all round attack following the
discovery of skeletons of children from a drain behind businessman
Moninder Singh's house
in Sector 31 of the upscale suburban town.
The skeletons are suspected to be of 38 children, mostly girls, who
went missing while playing near a water tank at Nithari, a
semi-rural village on the edges of Noida, over the past 21 months.
The first kidnapping was reported in March 2005.
Moninder Singh and his domestic help Surendra Kohli alias Satish
were arrested Friday on charges of molesting and murdering children.
Bua Singh admitted his men had failed to investigate the crime
properly. Parents of the victims, who all came from poor families,
alleged that the Noida police were indifferent to their pleas for a
thorough investigation.
"There is no denying that this was a case of gross laxity,
negligence and failure on the part of some policemen who did not pay
the desired attention to repeated reports of missing children from
the area. Those found guilty of neglect will be severely punished,"
Bua Singh said.
He, however, felt that the media was undermining the efforts of the
police by highlighting only their failures.
"The fact remains that if the police had eventually not acted, the
killings would have continued," he pointed out.
"After all, it was on account of our electronic surveillance that we
could track down the killer who was using a mobile belonging to one
of the victims.
"What surprises me that even as body after body was being dumped in
a drain running between the area and village, no one ever complained
of the stench that was bound to be emanating from the place."
He denied that parents of some of the victims had alerted the police
about the involvement of now arrested Surendra in the heinous crime.
"No one ever raised doubts about Surendra whom we arrested only
because of our electronic surveillance."
About the possibility of the killings being a part of organ trading
racket, Singh said: "We do not rule out anything. I am sure
everything will be in place once the probe is complete."
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