Questions about missing boy refuse to go away

AHMEDABAD, April 21: Questions without answers swirl around the disappearance of eight-and-a-half-year-old Upendra, alias Atul, more than...

AHMEDABAD, April 21: Questions without answers swirl around the disappearance of eight-and-a-half-year-old Upendra, alias Atul, more than a year after he was last seen. Was he kidnapped? Did he run away?

September 5, 1997, dawned just like any other day on the residence of Vijaysinh Ramnavaransinh Rajput and his wife Nirmala Devi. At 11.15 am, just like all other school days, Upendra8217;s pickup van came honking, and the boy ran out, with his cousins in tow. That was the last anyone apparently saw of him.

8220;Since it was Teacher8217;s Day, we expected Upendra to return from school 8212; the Amrit Firdaus at Shahibaug 8212; around 2.15 pm. But instead of the boy, a school peon came in with Upendra8217;s bag and water-bottle. Both had been discovered in the school8217;s assembly hall. But there was no sign of my child8221;, says Rajput.

The Rajputs say they went to the house of school principal Mrs Banerjee later in the day to find out if the child had been accidentally locked up in the school. According to Banerjee, the first thing she did on hearing about the lost child was order a search of the school premises.

Banerjee, holding the view that the school is not responsible for the disappearance, points to the fact that the school register 8212; which is still in the possession of the Shahibaug police station 8212; shows he didn8217;t attend the first class.

The parents claim the police refused to file a case of kidnapping, and instead filed a missing persons case. 8220;They refused to register an FIR even after we started receiving calls from the kidnappers8221;, they say. 8220;The callers demanded Rs 25 lakhs, and sent us Upendra8217;s photos to prove they had the child.8221;

Though the file had, by this time, been passed on to the Crime Department, Rajput says they put up a caller-identity telephone and established the phone number where the calls were coming from. 8220;Two were private numbers. We told the police, but don8217;t know if anything was done8221;, he adds.

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Says family-friend Usmangani Daudbhai Mansuri, 8220;I drew up a list of four suspects and why we suspected them and gave it to the police. But no action was taken8221;.

Eventually, worn down by the tension, the family decided to meet the abductors at least half-way.

In Hindi film-style, a rendezvous was fixed up on March 22, 1998, in a particular Ahmedabad-Godhra ST bus, where plain clothes Crime Branch personnel were also supposed to be present.

But no one came up to the carrier with the boy8217;s photograph, the signal agreed on. 8220;Since that date, there have been no more phone-calls8221;, says Rajput. Posters, rewards, television broadcasts yielded no results.

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The Crime Branch8217;s K C Chudasma, who8217;s in charge of the case, however, says the case is still open.In the meantime, the questions swirl around, looking for answers.