Girls ‘kidnapped’ by principal refuse to return home

The Criminal Investigation Department (Crime) of Gujarat, which is investigating the case of the alleged abduction, produced the two Class XI girl students in the court of Justice Anant Dave and Sonia Gokani on Thursday.

After they went missing from Dr Dipchand Gardi International School near Padadhari in Rajkot district on July 23, 2013 and the police failed to locate them for months, parents of the minor girls had moved the HC with a habeas corpus application.

The girls were secured by Punjab police from Budhlada town in Mansa district of that state on the basis of information provided by CID (Crime) on Monday evening. With them, Dhaval Trivedi, principal of Gardi School, was also arrested from Budhlada.

Justice Dave and Justice Gokani counselled the minor girls in their chamber alone and in the presence of their respective parents for around two hours. But the girls, both of whom are 17-year-old, refused to go with their parents and insisted that they wanted to live with Trivedi.

“The girls even did not look their parents in the eye and gave no response to their pleadings to return home with them. They told the court that Trivedi had taken good care of them and that they would like to live with them,” a police officer, who was present in the court, said.

“As the girls did not change their mind after long counselling session, the court ordered to send them to separate women protection homes in Rajkot and Jamnagar. The court felt separating the duo would leave them with time to think about their future,” Digvijaysinh Vaghela, deputy superintendent of police of CID (Crime), told The Indian Express. Vaghela is investigating officer of the case.

Managing trustee of the private residential school had lodged a complaint of kidnapping against 43-year-old principal Trivedi two days after he eloped with the girl students. While one of the girl hails from Jam Khambhaliya taluka in Dwarka district, the other is from Rakhudad village in Lalpur taluka of neighbouring Jamnagar district. The duo were studying in Gardi School together, the police said.

Principal to be produced in court Meanwhile, the CID (Crime) was to produce Trivedi before a local court late on Friday evening.
“Trivedi’s three-day transit remand ends this evening and we shall produce him before a court in Rajkot to seek their police remand,” DySP Vaghela said.

The CID had reached to Ahmedabad earlier in the day after securing his transit remand from Budhlada in Punjab where he was arrested by local police on Monday evening.