The Tribune, January 23, 2002

Case filed after 19 days
Tribune News Service

Faridabad, January 22
Nineteen days after a teenage-boy was reported missing, the police have now booked a case of kidnapping.

A plus-two student of a public school here, Rohit Vashist has been untraceable since January 2.

Seventeen-year-old Rohit, residing in Sector-8, had gone on a scooter from his house at noon, but failed to return.

It is learnt that he had failed to qualify the screening test of IIT Delhi and had been very upset, according to his family sources. Rohit had been very keen on passing the IIT test.

The police sent parties to various places to trace Rohit, but could not ascertain his whereabouts.

Surprisingly, the police had recovered the scooter of the victim the same day, but they informed his parents on January 8 only. The delay in informing the parents has angered the relatives of Rohit. Miffed about the conduct of the police, the relatives complained to the SSP that the cops of Kheri Bridge Chowki had been using Rohi’s scooter, but did not inform them about its recovery.

The ASP, Mr Sanjay Kumar, who was asked to conduct a probe, suspended one of the policemen in this connection. The police believe that Rohit might have been kidnapped. They are now searching for him.

However, the relatives of Rohit alleged slackness on the part of the police and feared that the dithering might have led to some unfortunate happening.