Kidnapping of students: Police finds the truth

SHILLONG: Giving a twist to the recent cases of kidnapping of three students of a city school, police on Monday confirmed that no kidnapping took place and the so called ‘victims’ had lodged false complaints in this connection. Speaking to media persons here on Monday, Vivek Syiem, SP (City) , said that the girls during interrogation admitted that they went to some places with their classmates and since they were late, they made concocted story about abduction. He said that normally police act tough in case of any false complaints “but since the girls are juveniles, police will re consider the matter.” “We are thinking about taking up the matter with Child Welfare Committee for the counselling of the three girls,” he said. Recently, two cases of abduction of three school-going girls have been reported. All three are students of Little Angel School of Mawbah. Police acted after their parents filed a complaint and even the boys who went with girls were questioned. CCTV depends on weather Syiem said that CCTV cameras were not functional on the day of incident due to electricity and weather problem in the area. “At times due to bad weather, there is load shedding, and when there is load shedding in one part of the town, the network goes off as it has to relay from tower to tower like a web. If one tower goes off, the other tower will not function. So there are times when CCTV is not functioning,” Syiem said . He said that when CCTV goes off, police request MeECL to restore power and subsequently the cameras are realigned. “There are battery backups but they can’t sustain long. As long as there is proper power supply there will not be glitches. You can’t have 100 percent functional system,” Syiem said. According to Syiem, there is a proposal to extend CCTV surveillance in 30 more locations of Shillong. He also urged authorities of different schools in Shillong to install CCTV cameras in their gates. Meanwhile, the authorities of the Little Angel School have expressed dismay over the manner in which the parents of the students handled the case. “We came to know from the media about the kidnapping of the 12-year-old girl on April 28 which was later found to be bogus,” Riaz Ahmed Azad, the assistant headmaster of the school, said adding that the students and the parents should have informed the matter to the school authorities first before going to police. On questioned if any action will be taken against the students he said, “As for the incident that took place on Thursday, a case has been registered and it will be forwarded to the court and we will decide the next step only after the court order.”