Police rebuked over child kidnap

By Manikant Thakur
BBC News, Patna

The kidnapping sparked wide protests. Photo: Prashant Ravi

The high court in the Indian state of Bihar has rebuked the police chief for failing to rescue a nine-year-old child from kidnappers.

The court said if the police force could not protect children then it might as well be disbanded.

The abduction of Gaurav Kumar, nine, on 20 September while returning from school has sparked widespread protests.

Bihar is widely believed to be India's most lawless state where kidnappers regularly target the rich.

Dossier

Witnesses say Gaurav Kumar, alias Golu, was taken by criminals as he got off a school bus and headed home.

His kidnapping sparked state-wide protests by hundreds of school students and led to a day's closure of nearly 50 private and convent schools in the state capital, Patna, this month.

Students also took their protests to the house of Governor Buta Singh.

The high court then initiated its own petition, ordering police chief, Ashish Ranjan Sinha, to secure the boy's release by Friday.

When the two-man bench was informed of the police's failure, the furious judges ordered the police chief to appear in person before them.

A summons was issued and Mr Sinha came to the court with a dossier detailing police investigations in the case.

The police chief told the judges it had become difficult to trace the boy as he had been passed on to another gang.

Mr Sinha said police had arrested four of his original kidnappers and six others had been detained for questioning.

He said he was optimistic that the boy would be freed soon.

The judges allowed Mr Sinha four more days to find the boy.

The state was rocked by similar protests in January this year when a 14-year-old boy, Kishalay Gupta, was kidnapped from outside his Patna house.

The boy was rescued by the police after nearly two weeks.

His abduction became an election issue with opposition parties using it to highlight the state's poor law and order situation.