7-yr-old girl who went 'missing' found safe at HR exec's home
THANE, June 2 -- Two days after seven-year-old Diva resident Sakshi Pandey was reported missing, she was reunited with her family on Monday. Six teams were formed to trace the girl and footage from 940 CCTV cameras at railway stations between Diva and Badlapur was scanned before she was found in the residence of a 35-year-old human resources (HR) executive who lives in Badlapur, police officers familiar with the case told HT.
"The HR executive is the father of a sexual assault survivor, and he had taken Pandey home after finding her alone at Diva railway station as he did not want her to be exploited by someone," said Anu Sharma, the investigating officer in the case.
After the girl was rescued, doctors at a government hospital examined her and ruled out any possibility of sexual assault, Sharma noted.
According to the police, Pandey's family had relocated from Delhi to Diva in January and her father works at a rangoli manufacturing unit in Bhiwandi, earning around Rs.13,000 per month. She has three sisters and a brother, none of whom are enrolled in school owing to the family's poor financial situation.
The seven-year-old girl went missing around 8:30pm on Thursday, and her parents reported her missing at the Mumbra police on Friday. Once the missing complaint was filed, the police inquired with residents and checked CCTV cameras. The footage showed her roaming through Diva before reaching platform number one at Diva station around 10:37pm. She was then seen speaking to a man, and boarding a Kalyan-bound local train with him.
Following this lead, six teams were formed under the guidance of assistant commissioner of police Priya Damale and senior police inspector Anil Shinde. The teams scanned CCTV footage from multiple railway stations, and found that the duo had alighted from the train at Ambernath and taken another train to Badlapur, where they alighted around 12:15am.
The police then scanned CCTV footage from Badlapur railway station and showed photographs of the man and the girl to local auto-rickshaw drivers and shopkeepers. One auto driver identified the man as a regular commuter and directed the police to his residence. When the police knocked on the man's door, Pandey was having dinner with him and his three children.
"The girl had told the HR executive a false story - that she was from Delhi, had no parents, and had got lost after boarding the wrong train. As he is a single parent and was in a rush to cook dinner for his kids, he took the girl to his house instead of immediately taking her to the nearest police station," a police officer said. The HR executive and his wife had undergone separation about a year-and-a-half ago owing to differences over childcare and family responsibilities, and he had been taking care of their three children since, the officer said.
Once home, the man called his mother, an Anganwadi worker. He narrated the entire incident to her and decided to take the girl to the police on Sunday, when his mother had an off.
Though the HR executive was briefly detained on Sunday, he has not been booked as he appears to have acted in good faith, was the father of a sexual assault victim, and doctors had confirmed that Pandey had not been sexually assaulted, Sharma said....
इस लेख के रीप्रिंट को खरीदने या इस प्रकाशन का पूरा फ़ीड प्राप्त करने के लिए, कृपया
हमे संपर्क करें.