Girl missing for seven years: Jharkhand HC summons SPs, IOs posted in Gumla since 2018

Ranchi (IANS): Expressing dissatisfaction with the police’s inability to trace a girl missing since 2018, the Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday issued a stern summons to every Superintendent of Police (SP) and Investigating Officer (IO) posted in Gumla district over the last seven years. A division bench, headed by Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad, warned that the probe would be handed over to the CBI if the state machinery fails to produce results.

“Serious Failure of Police Machinery”

The court was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by the child’s mother, Chandramuni Urain. The girl, who was just six years old when she disappeared from Gumla in 2018, has remained untraced despite the matter being under the High Court’s direct scrutiny for a significant period.

Key observations from the bench included:

• Lack of Progress: The court noted that nearly seven years have passed without a single tangible clue, which it termed “deeply disturbing.”
• CBI Transfer Warning: The bench observed that the repeated requests for more time by the police, without showing progress, justify transferring the case to a central agency.
• Questionable Capacity: The court raised serious doubts about the investigative capacity of the local police, noting that even previous personal appearances by the Director General of Police (DGP) and the Gumla SP yielded no results.

Inadequate State Submissions

Earlier, the state government claimed that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was conducting multi-state searches and reviewing Railway travel history dating back to 2018. However, the court dismissed these submissions as insufficient, noting that prior directives on the formulation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for missing-children cases had not yielded concrete outcomes in this instance.

The High Court has now listed the matter for June 9, requiring all summoned officers to appear in person to explain the prolonged investigative stalemate.