By S.P. Singh
Ghaziabad, March 26 (IANS) Tied with a rope, four-year-old Rohit was being carried in a gunny bag on a cycle-rickshaw by his kidnapper. The child regained consciousness and the abductor panicked and fled the scene. Rohit was rescued. But over 80 other children missing from Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh since October have not been so lucky.

In a grim reminder of the Nithari case in Noida where 19 children and young women went missing and were later found raped and murdered, as many as 60 children have been missing in Ghaziabad in the last five months from Oct 1, 2008, to March 10, 2009.

At least 20 missing children complaints have been filed with the Indirapuram police station followed by 14 in Modi Nagar, 11 each in Pilkhuwa and Niwari, nine children were reported missing from Sahibabad, seven from Sihani Gate, six from Loni, two from Murad Nagar, and one case each was reported from Vijay Nagar, Dhaulana, Masuri and Hapur.

The residents of Ghaziabad allege an apathetic attitude on the part of police.

“Being a border village of Delhi, the locality is facing a terrible problem of child abduction. When children are found missing, we have to search for them on our own. When we approach police, they tell us why are we producing children when we cannot protect them,” Ram Kumar, a resident of Bhovapur, told IANS.

Last week villagers in Bhovapur, under the jurisdiction of the Indirapuram police station, recovered Rohit from a gunny bag after the child regained consciousness and the cycle-rickshaw driver became suspicious. Rohit’s kidnapper panicked and left the gunny bag in the cycle-rickshaw and fled.

Among those missing is a four-year-old girl from the same village who has not been traced for the last 15 days.

Rajdev, 13, and Raj Kishore, 11, have been missing from the Bhoor Bharat Nagar area covered by the Vijay Nagar police station for the last two weeks. The father of the two children accused the police of a lack of effort in tracing the missing children.

“They (police) have done nothing to recover the children,” said Babloo, the father of Rajdev and Kishore.

On March 17 six-year-old Karan was abducted from Shaheed Nagar under the Sahibabad police station.

Karan’s father Vijay lodged a complaint with the police but claimed that it was through his own efforts that he was able to trace his son from Buxar in Bihar.

Superintendent of Police Akhil Kumar told IANS: “Although at this time police are engaged in election preparations, I have instructed police officials to be more sensitive on such isssues, where children and women are concerned.”

(S.P. Singh can be contacted at spsinghg@gmail.com)