Bombay High Court lashes out at Police over failing to trace missing minor girl; says 'not every missing girl has eloped with lover

Bombay High Court slammed Maharashtra Police over failing to trace missing a minor girl since last year from Mumbai's Thane. The court also hit out police to stop assuming that every missing person’s case, involving a minor girl, was about her having eloped with a lover, as depicted in films.

In an order passed on July 10, a constitutional bench of Justices S C Dharamadhikari and Bharati Dangre said, “We are most unhappy with the state of affairs and the prevailing mindset of the police… Let not the investigating teams and officials placed at the highest level treat every case as one where the girl child runs away with the boy she loves, particularly as depicted in cinema or a film on the screen.”

The bench also said that the official should not forget that these are real-life events and there are people who are suffering on account of the loss of their children. “…it is high time that a change is brought about in their mindsets,” the court said while hearing a writ petition filed earlier this year by the girl’s father, seeking that the police be directed to expedite its search for his daughter.

Additional Public Prosecutor J P Yagnik submitted that as per the probe conducted so far, the minor girl had left the home of her own accord after being “enticed” by a senior boy from her school. Raising question on this the bench asked, “Can school children stay on their own in an unknown place for so long? How are they changing locations, shifting hotels, who is giving them the money? Why don’t you go back to question the family and relatives? How can you (police) be sure that they haven’t been lying?”

“This is a case of the alleged minor being abducted/removed from the lawful custody from her parents. There could be a deeper intention and we have often found that such vulnerable children land up in either prostitution racket, or are forced to take up some other work at a young age,” the bench said.

According to Indian Express, the court has now granted an additional two weeks to the police to submit a fresh status report, and said it hoped that “some positive changes will emerge in the mindset of the officials”.