
NEW DELHI, May 26: A week after an 11-year-old girl went missing, her family continues their desperate search all across the city.
Jasmine, a student of St Thomas school, was discovered missing from her home in Old Rajinder Nagar on the morning of May 18.
Her family was not unduly worried that day as she went on one of her visits to Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, though someone or the other family member usually accompanied her.
On finding her untraceable at the gurudwara the family panicked. According to Arlene, the victim8217;s elder sister: 8220;When all efforts to trace her at the Gurdwara failed, we panicked. Finally at 11 am, all relatives and family members decided to lodge a complaint with the police. The police did not even register an FIR that day, they just noted it down in the Delhi Diary.8221;
Fortunately, one of their relatives had seen her getting into a blue Maruti car and noted the number. The police helped them in tracing the owner of the car, but Jasmine could not be found as the man said that he hadjust given her a lift till Rajouri Garden, where he was going.
8220;The police just instructed the man to help us find the girl and have deputed one constable to help us. Everyday, we leave our home in the morning to go and search for that girl, Arlene said .
She further added, 8217;We lost our father some three years ago and it is my brother, mother and sisters who are looking for her on the streets. We got posters printed and pasted all over the city. They did not even inform the PCRs and other police stations which is mandatory. We had to leave details and photographs of the girl at every police station and PCR,8221; fumes Arlene, who is a teacher in a government school.
8220;We are at our wits end and today we were supposed to meet the Police Commissioner, but after waiting at his office for two hours, we were told to come again,8221; sighs her mother.
Jasmine, who is a student of St Thomas, is in a special class as she is a slow learner. This makes her family is all the more worried. However, Ajay Kashyap, DCPCentral said: 8220;The reason why the case was not registered the same day is because the girl has a history. She had gone missing once earlier also and was found 10-12 days later. She is a slow learner and requires a lot of care. So we just asked the family to search for her for a day and if they did not find her, we would register a case. The next day we registered a case of kidnapping of a minor.8221;
Stating that there was no malafide intention on their part, Kashyap said that they had questioned the man who had given her the lift and found that he had no involvement in the case. 8220;We have sent several messages to the PCRs and all police stations and are doing our best to trace her,8221; he said.