The Madras High Court Bench here on Friday expressed its displeasure over the way the Madurai city police had handled a case related to the missing of a seven-year-old girl who had been allegedly sold by her own father, according to his estranged wife and biological mother of the child.
Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran summoned Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) P. Arun Sakthi Kumar to the court and directed him to appoint Murugesan, Additional Superintendent of Police, Prohibition and Enforcement Wing, as the investigation officer to trace the missing child and file a report by October 20.
Orders on HCP
The orders were passed on a habeas corpus petition filed by the girl’s mother Barakath Nisha who accused Jaihindpuram police of inaction despite a specific complaint lodged with the police stating that she suspected her estranged husband, who had taken custody of the child after they got separate in 2013, of having sold the child.
Appearing in person before the judges, the petitioner’s husband stated that he had left the child in the custody of his father who, in turn, had admitted the girl in a private home for children from where she was missing.
However, the home reported that the child was never admitted as claimed by the petitioner.
When the judges wanted to know whether the child’s paternal grandfather had lodged any complaint with respect to the missing of the child, they were told that a child missing case was lodged with Karimedu police station but it was closed by the police as undetected.
Displeased with such a submission made by the police, the judges also directed the police to alter the charges in the First Information Report to Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 which states that whoever having the actual charge of, or control over, a child, assaults, abandons, abuses, exposes or wilfully neglects the child could be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine of one lakh rupees or with both.
