Delhi Commission for Women pulls up police over 'delay' in probe into starvation deaths

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Commission for Women on Sunday lashed out at the city police over the delay in the probe into the death of three minor girls in Mandawali allegedly due to starvation.

The case was reported in July this year. The family was reportedly facing financial woes and doctors suspected that the three girls did not have food for days.

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) solicited a reply on the action taken in the matter by the police, which in turn informed the women rights body that a report of the viscera samples deposited in the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) was still awaited, the DCW said in a statement.

The Commission then issued a notice to FSL. However, the laboratory informed the body that the viscera report was lying with the FSL since September 28 and despite intimation, the police failed to collect the same, it said.

The Commission has now asked the police to provide the status of the probe and called its approach "unpardonable".

The police, in its response, said they received the viscera sample report from the FSL recently.

The report will be sent on Monday to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, where a second postmortem of the minor girls was conducted earlier. We will take the opinion of the hospital to ascertain the cause of the death, a senior police officer said.