Don146;t show us these faces

She was everything

Aloki Haldar is inconsolable. 8216;8217;I have lost everything,8217;8217; she says. Her daughter Bina worked in one of the houses in Noida8217;s Sector 31 and disappeared over a year and a half ago. The Haldars migrated from Murshidabad to Delhi 15 years ago in search for a better life. It8217;s a decision they are regretting.

Missing since March 31, 2005, but no complaint registered

Umesh Kumar, 12, a student of Kanchan Public School went missing from Noida8217;s Sector 31 in March 2005 but a complaint was never registered. 8216;8217;We were told not to produce children if we could not look after them,8217;8217; says his father Nageshwara Yadav.

The police said, usko shahar ki hawa lag gayi

It was a holiday that went horribly wrong. Rimpa Haldar, 14, came to Noida from Nadia in West Bengal where she was studying to visit her father, a rickshawpuller, and mother, a domestic help. In February, she disappeared.

8216;8216;We wanted to protect her from a city8217;s harsh environment and that8217;s why we left her to study back home in West Bengal,8217;8217; says her father Anil Haldar. She was in Noida for just three months. 8216;8216;We didn8217;t know where to look in this city, what had happened to our beautiful daughter who we had always wanted to protect. Then we got a note stuck on our rickshaw saying she had eloped but we knew this could not be true. The note was in Hindi, a language Rimpa was not familiar with,8217;8217; says her mother Dolly.

The police did not help. Instead, the Haldars were insulted. 8216;8216;We went to the police station at least three times after the missing complaint was filed on February 8. The police told us to go back, saying usko shahar ki hawa lag gayi thi and she has eloped,8217;8217; Dolly says.

I don8217;t go to school anymore. Papa says they8217;ll kill me too

Ten-year-old Jyoti Lal was wise beyond her years, says brother Rakesh. So, when she went missing on June 20 last year, he was surprised. 8216;8216;We thought she was very smart. No one could fool her,8217;8217; he says. According to the police she could be one of the victims. Until December 28, police wasn8217;t so responsive though. 8216;8216;I must have visited the police station a hundred times but they made fun of us,8217;8217; says Jyoti8217;s father Jhabbu Lal, a dhobi in Sector 31. Only after skeletons were discovered did the police lodge an FIR. But Lal fears it8217;s too late. He8217;s found pieces of her clothes at the police station. Such his fear now that he8217;s withdrawn all his five children, except his son, from school. 8216;8216;Papa says they8217;ll kill me too so I don8217;t go to school anymore,8217;8217; says Jyoti8217;s nine-year-old sister Bharti above.

8212;Pallavi Singh

We searched every house in the village

Madhu Gautam, the 20-year-old daughter of Karamveer and Santra of Nithari went looking for work on November 12, 2006, and never came back. An FIR was registered in the police chowki in Sector 26, Noida.

When after three visits to the police chowki their daughter was still not found, Karamveer and Santra went to the police thana in Sector 20. 8220;We searched every house in the village for her,8217;8217; says Santra. Her search now, she says, is over. Karamveer and she identified Madhu8217;s clothes and chappals in the debris dug from the drain before House No 5.

Each day spent looking for my son means a day8217;s wages lost

Physically challenged Niyaz Ahmed, 20, went missing from Noida8217;s Sector 10 on November 20, 2004. Says his father Nisar Khan, 8216;8216;I work in a Noida factory. Each day I spend looking for my son, is one day less of wages. The police never helped me. They laughed and said, come to us when you have a clue. Would a killer spare a physically challenged boy who could not use one hand and one leg? I wonder if there is justice in this world.8217;8217; 8216;8216;The police has never helped me in my search.8217;8217;

He never got his nephew photographed. Now he8217;s missing

Mohammed Hasib is a broken man. His nephew Jumaan Ali Sheikh, 12, was last seen on the afternoon of April 24, 2006. 8216;8216;I just went for lunch leaving him to look after the shop. I was not gone for more than 10 minutes but when I returned, he was gone,8217;8217; says the tailor who lives in Noida. Hasib registered an FIR at the neighbouring police chowki. 8216;8216;All that the police told me was that the boy had probably run away and would be back in a few days.8217;8217;

The few days have stretched to nearly nine months. And now Hasib is heartbroken that he doesn8217;t even have a photograph of his nephew. It never struck him to get one taken.

8212;Sudarshan Bopatragohain

From Ghaziabad to Noida, the search is on

Is the distance between Ghaziabad and Noida8217;s Sector 31 too much for a killer to bridge? That8217;s what Wasim8217;s parents would like to know. Searching for their 12-year-old son who went missing from Ghaziabad on May 19, 2004, has yielded no result.

8216;8216;We have come this far in the hope of finding a clue that will lead us to our son. Will we ever find him? My son had come to Ghaziabad from Muzaffarnagar, where he studied. From there, something happened,8217;8217; says Wasim8217;s father.

8216;8216;I am a mechanic and have spent so much money and time on finding my son. I might not be a powerful person but I would like to know what the police has done for so long.8217;8217;

I was even threatened

NAND Lal8217;s 26-year-old daughter Payal has been missing since May 7, 2006. The police claims to have nailed the accused by tracing her cellphone to House No. D-5.

According to the police, Payal was a call girl Moninder had a soft spot for. Nand Lal, though, has a different story. 8216;8216;When I first went to lodge a missing person8217;s complaint, I was mocked at and threatened,8217;8217; he says. Now, Nand Lal has become the showpiece for the police, with the Chief Minister saying it was the 8216;8216;prompt action8217;8217; of the police and the Payal link that cracked the case.

The search for his wife cost him his job

On October 31 last year, Dil Bahadur Shahi, a guard at one of the houses in Noida8217;s sector 31, went off to work as usual in the morning. His wife Nanda Devi, 34, started for House No. D-5 where she worked, leaving their six children at home. She never returned.

That is when Shahi began rounds of police stations to register a complaint. 8216;8216;I have lost count of the number of times I must have visited the police station. They said she must have run away.8217;8217;

The search for his wife cost Shahi his job. 8216;8216;Sitting up all night with crying children and feeding them during the day kept me occupied. I sold my land to raise money to feed them,8217;8217; he says.

Sixty days after Nanda Devi went missing, the police finally registered Shahi8217;s complaint on December 31. That was three days after the skeletons tumbled out. A copy of the FIR arrived four days after the complaint was registered.

Shahi has found pieces of his wife8217;s clothes at the police station.

8212;Pallavi Singh

We came from Darjeeling to start a new life. Now there8217;s nothing

James Thapa8217;s wife delivered a healthy baby boy last month but there is no joy in their home. Ever since their little daughter Nisha went missing on July 24, 2006. For this family from Darjeeling, the loss is too much to bear and the pain too sharp.

8216;8216;There was absolutely no feedback from the police. I went to the police station every week and shelved my plans of starting an eatery. We came to Noida to start an eating joint, I have done a course in cooking and can talk in English. We came here to start a new life. But now, there is nothing. Even if I stay here, my wife and my son will go back to our native place. We cannot stay in a place where the police refuses to help us,8217;8217; says James Thapa. In a corner, his wife Cynthia kneels under a cross and prays silently.

God didn8217;t listen and the police didn8217;t help

Dipali Haldar, 12, has been missing since July 18, 2006. Says her mother Rita Haldar, a domestic help, 8216;8217;I went at least five times to the police. Once I even fell at their feet, asking them to help find my daughter. They said, paal nahi sakte to bacche paida kyun karte ho?8217;8217; she says. 8216;8217;We might be poor, but we also fear the sexual exploitation of our daughters. I prayed to God that whatever happens to her, she should not have been raped. But God did not listen and the police did not help.8217;8217;

Max8217;s father has nothing to say

According to the the police, eight-year-old Satindra or Max as he was known, could be the killer8217;s second male target. Max was only eight when he went missing in April 2006. Life changed forever for Max8217;s physically challenged father, Ashok Kumar, who was given compensation last week after he identified his son8217;s belongings. In deep shock, Max8217;s father has nothing to say to anyone anymore.

I wanted my daughter to study in this big city

Pushpa, 10, was dressed in bright colours when she disappeared in April 2006. For her father Sunil, educating her was the one bright spark in his life. 8216;8217;I am just a rickshaw puller. But I tried to give my daughter an education in this big city,8217;8217; Sunil says.

8216;8217;I went to the police many times. Though my daughter went missing in early April the complaint was registered only on April 19. No one paid any attention to me because we are poor.8217;8217;

What8217;s left is a copy of the complaint

Madina8217;s parents also visited the police station to look through the clothes found but without success. 8216;8217;If her clothes are not here, does that mean the child is not dead or met some horrible fate? We are poor people. The police behaved very badly with us. We were told that our daughter has eloped and they finally filed the complaint on May 15. What can a father say after hearing such words? We are still searching for our daughter,8217;8217; says Mohammad Irfan, a tailor.

My son was mentally disturbed; the policemen were amused

Radha Haldar, mother of 14-year-old Nipun has been crying ever since he went missing on December 8, 2004. Radha claims to have also identified her son8217;s slippers though she admits she is not very sure what her son was wearing at the time he stepped out. Reason: the adolescent Nipun was mentally disturbed. 8216;8216;For such a child, is it possible to monitor his movements, or what he wore when he stepped out two years ago? The police said, take care of your own children. For them, it was a source of amusement, not concern, that there was something wrong with my son,8217;8217; says Radha.

How can one monitor the police?

Aarti, 11, was missing for the last five months. Compared to other parents, the wait hasn8217;t been so long, but the pain has been as hitting. 8216;8216;The police is so negligent. They don8217;t care about us. My complaint was filed after I made two trips to the police. At the time the Nithari case was cracked, I was asked not to hang about the house or stand near the policemen. This is how the police treat those who are wronged,8217;8217; says her father Durgaprasad.

Even after the complaint was filed, the police did not include his daughter8217;s picture in a missing poster printed recently which had 10 faces. 8216;8216;How does a citizen know whether the police is actually acting on a complaint?8217;8217; he asks.

But Prasad fears the worst after he identified his daughter8217;s clothes among the heap at the Noida house.

The youngest one

Ramkishen Dhamuk8217;s three-year-old son Harsh went missing on February 23, 2006. In police records, he8217;s the youngest among the missing. Ramkishen, a driver with the Noida authority, says, 8216;8216;at the time my child went missing, we thought only girls were being picked up and there was some hope of finding our child8217;8217;. Now he says even that hope is lost.

In his confession to the police, accused Surender has disclosed that he had picked up Harsh because he couldn8217;t tell he was a boy. Once he did, he says, he decided to kill him anyway. 8216;8216;My complaint was registered on time because I work with the Noida authority. But I don8217;t think they did anything between February and December.8217;8217;

I told the police about the accused but they did nothing

A student of DPS Noida, Rachna Lal, 8, disappeared from sector 31 lane on April 10 last year. Just a few months after she disappeared, her father Pappu Lal who works at a local factory shifted to House No. D-2 from village Nithari.

On April 10, Rachna started from home to visit her grandparents. Her parents never heard from her again. 8216;8216;We looked for her everywhere,8217;8217; says her father.

Pappu Lal claims he suspected Koli, Pandher8217;s servant right from the day Rachna went missing, but the police did not care to act. Later, he identified Rachna8217;s dupatta in the police station. 8216;8216;We shudder to think what would have happened to my child inside that house,8217;8217; he says.

8212;Pallavi Singh