UP highway horror: Cops made me pay for taxi hired to look for my kidnapped daughter, claims father

MEERUT: Two days after the 15-year-old daughter of a Ghaziabad priest was found brutally murdered in Meerut, the victim’s father said cops made him pay for the taxi hired to take policemen to various districts during the fortnight-long search operations. The girl, a student of class X, was kidnapped from NH58 18 days ago and a complaint was registered at Ghaziabad’s Modinagar police station on December 27 where the girl’s father had also produced the mobile number of one of the kidnappers.
“I can barely manage two square meals a day for my family working as a priest. Kind neighbours pooled in money to arrange the taxi demanded by the local police who took me to Muzaffarnagar, Haridwar, Saharanpur and other adjoining areas. I have drained out all my savings in searching for my daughter but could not recover her alive,” he said.
The priest said he had written a letter to CM Yogi Adityanath seeking his intervention following the local police’s shoddy investigation. “If they would have made genuine efforts to look for her, my daughter would have been alive today,” he said.
The girl's mutilated body, which bore marks of torture with cigarette butts, was found in a field in Partapur area of Meerut late on Friday. Local residents, backed by right-wing organisations, staged huge protests on Saturday blocking NH58 in Modinagar for hours.
In a knee-jerk reaction, Ghaziabad police suspended Modinagar station house officer Neeraj Kumar Singh and attached circle officer Rajkumar to police lines.
Ghaziabad police, however, refuted the allegations of the victim’s father. “Teams were pressed into action and they were looking for the girl in Delhi and several districts of west UP. We didn’t solicit any help in the name of taxi from the aggrieved family. Additional teams have now been deployed to smoke out the assailants and we will soon crack the case,” Ghaziabad SSP Hari Narayan Singh said.
Notably, the entire Modinagar police station staff of 132 personnel was disbanded by the SSP last year after a 14-year-old girl was kidnapped and murdered in September 2017.