With kids missing, Indians flock to "horror house"
16 Jan 2007 08:14:31 GMT Source: Reuters
By Nita Bhalla NOIDA, India, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Desperate and poor, they have travelled from all over the Indian capital and beyond looking for their missing children, hoping the lavish house they have gathered outside will end their painful search. Members of about 200 families have flocked here since police began removing remains of about 20 women and children, beginning last month, from the backyard and drain of a rich businessman's house in Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi, local people say. "My son went missing in April 2005, I have searched all over the city, put adverts in newspapers, reported it to the police ... where else do I go, except here?" said Delhi resident Geeta Pal, holding up a photograph of her 18-year-old son, Rakesh. "Everyone who has come here believes this house where they butchered children is where the search for our own lost children will end," she said. Desperate mothers and fathers handed out 35 statements containing detailed descriptions of when and where children disappeared, complete with photographs and telephone numbers. Families deny accusations by some police officials they are just chasing compensation being offered by the local government. "We are not interested in money. This is just what they say so they don't have to look for our children," said Anisa. Two of her children vanished while playing outside her house in nearby Ghaziabad last August. No matter how unlikely it is that their fate is linked to events in Noida, poor families who feel the state is against them have latched on to the story. As public anger has mounted, police officers have been criticised -- and a handful dismissed -- for failing to take seriously reports of over 40 missing people, and then botching the investigation once the first human bones were recovered. Days after they ended their searches of the area around the house, officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation, asked to take over the probe by the state government, said they had dug up 40 polythene bags containing human remains. The house owner and a servant have been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, rape and murder, but have not been charged. But while excavators continue to dig up the area around the house -- dubbed the "house of horrors" by journalists -- and TV crews jostle with police, few pay attention to the parents waiting for answers in near freezing nighttime temperatures. "Since we heard about the killings, we have been camping here outside the house hoping someone will tell us something," said Rani, whose three-year-old son disappeared two years ago when he went to buy toffees from a neighbourhood shop in Noida. In India nearly 45,000 children are recorded as missing every year, according to the National Human Rights Commission, more than 11,000 of whom are never traced. "I have been from Amritsar to Mumbai and from Haridwar to Jaipur looking for my son, Manbir, who disappeared on his way to school in October 2004," said Joginder Prajpati. "We have seen politicians ... and all the big people come here to get publicity, but no one has spoken to us or asked us what our problems are because we are poor and don't matter."
