It was mid October when an advertisement about a missing British girl of Indian origin,GauriBhonsle(21) appearedon the front page of one of the leading newspapers. The advertisement said the girl was missing from Southhampton, London and likely to be in India. It provided full details of the girl along with a phone number to be contacted if she was seen anywhere. Likewise, there was a poster on the community page of Facebook saying “Help Find Gauri; A single share could save a life.”
Later, on October 31, there was a newsreport in almost every leading newspaper, including The Hindu and The Indian Express that the above mentioned missing girl had been traced in Deoband in Saharanpur District of Uttar Pradesh. The news was published along with a statement of Superintendent of Police, Saharanpur,DurgaCharan Mishra, “We raided the house and rescued her.” According to Mishra, the girl came to India on October 10 as she was annoyed with her parents in London. She first went to Mumbai then Ganganagar in Rajasthan and then to Delhi from where she was abducted. The police said it had informed the British High Commission in New Delhi about her rescue.
Then news spread that the face of the rescued girl did not match with the missing British girl GauriBhonsle. But this news did not get space in any one of the leading newspapers as it deserved. It was November 1 when the Urdu daily Rashtriya Sahara published the same advertisement along with the photograph of the rescued girl with the caption “UP POLICE MISTOOK AN ADVERTISEMENT OF A TV SERIAL TO A NOTICE OF MISSING.”It was written that the girl rescued from Deoband is ShamimaAkhtar of West Bengal, and not GauriBhonsle of Britain and that her mother Sabrina has identified her and said she had fled away with her boy-friend, Irfan, some days ago.
As the Indian Police more often not are reported to have cooked up stories and found “imaginary culprits,” they not only found the “missing” GauriBhonsle who was in fact never missed but also announcedtheir quick and prompt response through media. They did not think it necessary to collect appropriate information about GauriBhonsle from authentic sources and portrayed the rescued girl as her. Actually the advertisement about missing GauriBhonsle was a promo of a TV Serial which would be aired soon and the said girl went missing mysteriously in the serial. It was the UP Police who, interestingly, could not differentiate between a promo of serial and a notice of a missing person.
But the question is what made the police to make such type an announcement without checking its authenticity. It is difficult to say why UP police acted with such negligence but a gentleman said the other day, “Give them an assignment to chase a wild goose and they’ll bring you the same before your eyes blink. Changing what is impossible into possible and making nothing everything is an art here.” It seems he is not wrong. It is shocking rather disgusting to know that some high officials like Superintendents and Inspector Generals of Police, who are supposed to think twice before making any public statement, have made such an announcement.
Such acts would reduce the credibility of police department in the eyes of general public and the latter will never lend an ear to any announcement made by them in the future. Concerned Head of the Police Department should punish all the officials who were involved in this public announcement on the charge of defaming the police department. Promptness and dedication towards their job is appreciable but not at the cost of respect and prestige of the department. Infact the department needs some mature, responsible, honest and dedicated officials who work not for medals but to serve the nation and her citizens.