From increasing the reward money 20 times to despatching mounted police to JNU forests and dealing with several false alarms, the Delhi Police’s search for Najeeb Ahmed, the 27-year-old Jawaharlal Nehru University student who went missing last October, saw many highs and lows. At the end of every stage, however, things were back to square one.
The police investigation failed to instil any hope in Najeeb’s family, which constantly questioned their actions, and even the Delhi High Court went on to say there was an impression that the probe was not being done properly, leading to the case being transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
That considerable time was lost in evidence gathering was clear from the fact that the first Special Investigating Team (SIT), comprising south district police officers, failed to even track the autorickshaw driver who ferried Najeeb from JNU campus to Jamia Millia Islamia in south-east Delhi. It was only after the probe was transferred to the Crime Branch that these facts came to light. Given the pace of the case this seemed to be a breakthrough, but nothing much happened thereafter.
Investigators conceded that a timely scanning of CCTV footage from areas near Jamia may have provided vital clues in the case.
Police teams that went to cities in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh returned empty-handed.
Lie-detector test
Another factor which is often linked to Najeeb leaving the campus is his scuffle with a group of students (nine named in the case) affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. These nine students never turned up for a lie-detector test ordered by the court despite being served repeated notices. They were quizzed by the two SITs too, but they failed to find evidence against them.
Failing to make any headway, the police revised the reward for providing any clue about Najeeb from ₹50,000 initially to ₹10 lakh in January this year. That amount has not been changed by the CBI after it took over the probe this May.
The reward money being increased from time to time meant a few calls on the helpline numbers providing clues, but not one led the police anywhere close to tracing Najeeb. Among these was a case of mistaken identity where a caller from south Delhi’s Kapashera claimed to have spotted Najeeb as a “vagabond with a grown beard”. Also a ransom call was made from Bihar’s Sasaram for ₹20 lakh, the caller later landed in police net.
Over three dozen people have made calls with information on Najeeb so far, but not one tip-off has yielded any significant result.