Nithari; the biggest crime ignored by cops

What happened in Nithari may be the biggest crime that the Gautam Budh Nagar police chose to ignore for a long time, reports Jatin Gandhi.

What happened in Nithari may be the biggest crime that the Gautam Budh Nagar police chose to ignore for a long time. But, it may not be the only one. The district saw a murder every four days in 2006 – 84 murders took place last year, yet the police did not bat an eyelid.

Picture this: According to the statistics available on the website of the Noida police, 105 unidentified bodies have been found in the district since March 2005 – despite claims of thorough investigations by the police, nearly half the bodies remain unidentified. In less than two years, 169 people have gone missing.

Statistically, every week since March 2005, five residents have either been murdered, found lying dead somewhere or have simply gone missing.

The police, however, remain unfazed by the goings on in the world of crime around them. When confronted with the statistics, Senior Superintendent of Police RKS Rathore said he was surprised at the figures and he would have to check them up before he could comment. After two days of 'checking', when Rathore spoke to HT on Saturday, he said: "The numbers of murders this year has shot up due to Nithari. Otherwise, before the 17 murder cases of Nithari were added to the list, there had been 67 murders. That was a marginal increase over 2005, in which we registered 60 murders." That's still a citizen being murdered every six days.

"It is not too alarming because there have been no organised crime cases. Two cases of kidnapping for ransom were reported last year and both were worked out. We have studied the cases and in some instances we found people's tolerance towards one another is decreasing," Rathore said. A police official in-charge of crime records in the district said the unidentified dead were "often cases of suicide or accidents. Many died due to illness. For each one we have registered cases."

With the police's claims of 'no organised crime', the district has 149 criminals declared as 'wanted by the police' on the loose and another 460, who have been declared history-sheeted.

Email Jatin Gandhi: jatin.gandhi@hindustantimes.com

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