Noida: Missing youth cremated by cops as kin still look for him

NOIDA: A 20-year-old youth was cremated by police in Bisrakh even as cops in another police station and his family failed to trace him. The incident brought to the fore the lack of coordination between cops at two police stations. Noida police has now ordered an inquiry into the matter and suspended a sub-inspector.
Vishal Yadav, an excavator driver, had called his family on August 17 and told them he had a fight with his employer and would return home soon. Vishal went incommunicado after that. His family waited one more day for him to return home and then lodged a complaint at Sector 39 police station.
Almost three weeks later, Vishal’s family has now learnt that the driver was found dead in Bisrakh on August 18. The cops there waited for someone to claim the body for three days and cremated it. On August 17, Vishal had made a frantic call to his family and told them he had been beaten up by other excavator drivers there. “However, he made another call a little later and told my father he would return home only settling his dues with his employer, Girish Kumar,” Vishal’s brother Vicky said.
Vishal had also told his family he had had a fight with his employer, Girish, over breaking a wall. Two days later, when his relatives went to enquire about Vishal’s whereabouts to the construction site where he worked, another driver told them Vishal was in Sector 76 on August 17.
The family alleged that when they went to Salarpur police chowki, the cops claimed Vishal might have eloped with a woman.
A formal complaint was lodged at Sector 39 police station on August 20. Cops at the police station said information about the missing youth was shared with all police stations in the district. Bisrkah police, too, claimed they had distributed pamphlets about the body they had recovered on August 18. Ádditional DCP (Nodia) Ranvijay Singh admitted there were lapses on the part of the investigating officer in probing the case, but added the Bisrakh cops should have checked records. While Vishal’s family claimed he had been murdered, police feel he could have met with an accident.