Noida:
Had they treated it like a case of kidnapping, Rohit Kumar could have been alive.
But, then Noida police, it seems, is in no mood to polish up its image. Nithari and Aarushi Talwar are just two cases in point.
It took three days for the cops to realise that the 20-year-old B Tech student of the Amity University has been kidnapped. Even an Rs 1 crore ransom call could not help them understand the gravity of the situation. And by the time it dawned upon them that the life of the young boy was in jeopardy, it was too late.
Rohit went missing from Noida on March 20. Rohit's family registered a case simultaneously with the Noida and Aligarh police the same day.
On 21st Rohit's family received a ransom call, which was later traced to Panipat in Haryana.
"The police had registered only a missing case and was treating it accordingly. We pleaded them to take it a little more seriously but only on March 23, they registered a case of abduction and put Rohit's phone on surveillance," a family member of Rohit told MiD DAY, requesting anonymity.
It is another matter that the police have finally arrested the three abductors, but if they could have moved a bit diligently, Rohit might have been attending his classes at Amity. But that was not to be.
All the three accused were close friends of Rohit's elder brother Anurag, who works with his father who is a government contractor in Aligarh. The accused -- Vivek Patel and Saurav Punjabi (both from Aligarh), and Vishal Sachdeva (a resident of Panipat) -- took the boy to Panipat and Vivek returned to Aligarh to join Rohit's family so that he would be able to keep a tab upon their plan of action.
Vivek is the grandson of former legislator from Aligarh Indrapal Singh. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ashok Kumar said: "The trio kidnapped Rohit from Sector 46, Noida on March 20. As the victim was known to the accused so he might have trusted them and have gone with them."
Police nabbed the trio through mobile surveillance and recovered a car and a pistol from them.
Meanwhile, the Aligarh police found the body of Rohit in a canal.
"The body of Rohit, who was abducted from Noida for a ransom of Rs one crore, has been found," said SSP Vijay Prakash of Aligarh.