23-year-old Dalit man found dead 12km away from where he went missing, cremated without ID check in Ahmedabad
Tired of too many ads? go ad free now
The police apathy and failure of inter-departmental coordination meant his family never got a chance to say goodbye.
A sanitation worker by morning and an autorickshaw driver for an app-based service by day, Chirag lived in the Boot Bhavani slums of Vejalpur. He left home early on June 23, without his phone or Aadhaar card — a detail that deepens his family's suspicion that he may have been forcibly taken. When he did not return that night, his family approached the Vejalpur police station.
Instead of lodging a formal missing complaint, officers reportedly told the family to wait and cited rath yatra bandobast as the reason for their inaction, alleged family members.
When the family returned the next day, police reportedly just made a 'janva jog (station diary note)", and no FIR was filed. Desperate, the family handed over 28 photos of Chirag to assist the police. What Vejalpur police did not know was that on June 24, Bopal police recovered an unidentified male body from the Telav canal, just 12 kilometres from where Chirag went missing.
Bopal police took the decomposed body to a community health centre, then shifted it to Civil Hospital, Asarwa, said police officers.
"Yet, no one from Bopal police made the effort to match the unidentified body with any missing person records from nearby police stations, a critical oversight," alleged the victim's mother Vali Vala. Meanwhile, Chirag's family continued appealing to senior officers and scanning CCTV footage.
Tired of too many ads? go ad free now
"After seven days, on July 1, we cremated the body as unclaimed," said a Bopal police officer.
The truth surfaced only after Chirag's wife, Manisha Vala, filed a habeas corpus petition in Gujarat high court on July 19. That evening, a Bopal police official called the family, asking them to visit the police station. There, male relatives were shown a photograph of Chirag's lifeless body. "When the family members identified him, we were told that his body had already been cremated," said Vali.
"My son was murdered. We were not even allowed to see his face one last time. This happened because Vejalpur and Bopal police failed to speak to each other," said the grieving mother.
Activist Rakesh Maheria, who supported the family's search, criticised the police: "Both police stations failed miserably. This is not mere negligence, it is inhuman." Had there been timely sharing of information, the body could have been identified earlier, allowing the family to perform the last rites, he added.
Confirming the chain of events, Bopal police inspector B T Gohil said that the body was cremated after seven days as no one had claimed it. When asked whether any state-wide alert or coordination with other stations was done, he said: "That's probably done after a month."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Delhi cops extorted Rs 25k, kicked me on chest: Malda woman
Kolkata: Delhi cops kicked her on her chest and in the stomach, ordered her to chant "Jai Shri Ram", took away her family's citizenship documents and extorted Rs 25,000 from her family, the Malda woman — whose family is at the centre of a Delhi-versus-Bengal row over citizenship issues — has claimed. "They (Delhi cops) showed the CCTV footage of me returning home with my children but not the footage of them thrashing me near Mangalam Hospital or torturing us at a police station," Sajnur Parveen, originally from Malda's Chanchal and who now stays in the slums of Shri Ram Chowk in East Delhi's Pandav Nagar with her six-member family, said at a press conference organised by the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on Wednesday. The woman and her family have been in the eye of a political storm after Delhi Police took the unusual step of publicly rebutting another state's CM's X post. Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Sunday evening had narrated on X the family's harrowing experience, calling the thrashing of a mother and her one-and-a-half-year-old son "terrible and atrocious". The family has now lodged a complaint against Delhi Police excesses at Kolkata's Pragati Maidan police station. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata Parveen claimed on Wednesday that her husband, Mukhtar Khan, was away at work when four cops came to their home last week. "They asked me to show our Aadhaar, which I was getting out, when they asked me where my husband was. They alleged we were Bangladeshis and warned us not to go anywhere before leaving with our papers," she added. Four cops, two of them women, returned the next day (last Saturday) around 11.30 am. "They told us to accompany them and called us Bangladeshis again. I was taking my daughter for her bath and my son was wearing only a T-shirt. I took him along with me in that state. The moment we reached a secluded spot (I could not say where exactly but they said it was near Mangalam Hospital), they started beating me and asked me my husband's whereabouts, all the time calling us Bangladeshis. They slapped me twice when I protested," Parveen said. She was then told to chant "Jai Shri Ram". "I said I was a Muslim and could not do what they said, prompting them to kick me. I was already unwell and my son fell from my grip when they tried to snatch him away. Then they slapped him as well. He still has weals near his ear," Parveen recounted on Wednesday. "They demanded Rs 25,000 for letting me go. I gave them my husband's number, after which they let me talk to him. My husband called his mother, who arranged for the money. They left us only after getting the money," Parveen said. But that was not the end of their ordeal as cops and mediapersons landed at their door the same evening (Saturday). "They took us to a police station where they separated me from my husband. It was here that they asserted that anyone from Bengal was a Bangladeshi. They did not even let the children stay with me," she added. "They let us go very late that night but told us we would not be spared if we dared talk about the incident in Bengal. 'Khel hoga (the Trinamool slogan of 'Khela hobe' in Hindi)', they told us," Parveen said at the press conference as Azmal Khan, her father-in-law, said they might be poor but were not "staging any drama". CM Banerjee first posted about the incident on Sunday and Delhi Police waited till Tuesday to call the video "fabricated and politically motivated". Trinamool latched on to the family's allegations, with state urban development minister and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim saying they had exposed the "conspiracy" to prove CM Banerjee wrong. The state would take the responsibility of all migrant workers and their families returning from other states, he added.
NDTV
3 hours ago
- NDTV
Cop Father Of Man Who Allegedly Killed Dalit Techie In Tamil Nadu Arrested
Chennai: In a major breakthrough in the alleged honour killing of Dalit techie Kavin Selvaganesh, the Tamil Nadu police have arrested sub-inspector Saravanan, the father of the main accused Surjith, who had earlier been arrested for allegedly murdering Kavin for being in a relationship with his sister. This arrest comes amid sustained protests by the victim's family and public outrage over what they see as a premeditated caste-based murder involving police complicity. Kavin, a 23-year-old software engineer from the Scheduled Castes community, was murdered in Tirunelveli district, reportedly by Surjith, who was upset about his sister's relationship with Kavin. The woman is a Siddha doctor belonging to a dominant upper caste in the hierarchy and worked at a local Siddha centre, where the incident unfolded. Surjith, allegedly caught on CCTV taking Kavin away on his bike, was arrested soon after the murder. Police invoked sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, charged him for murder, and later slapped the Goonda Act on him. As the investigation progressed, suspicion grew over the role of his parents - both serving police officers - in abetting or orchestrating the crime. Now, sub-inspector Saravanan, Surjith's father, has been arrested for his alleged role in the murder. The case has been transferred to the CB-CID to ensure impartiality, and both Saravanan and his wife had earlier been suspended from duty. However, Kavin's family has refused to accept his body, demanding the arrest of Saravanan's wife, also a sub-inspector, alleging she too was involved. Actor-politician Kamal Haasan condemned the killing, calling for stringent punishment and a united political front to fight casteism. This case has sparked widespread debate in Tamil Nadu on caste, honour crimes, and police accountability. As the CB-CID investigates further, the demand for justice continues to grow louder - not just from Kavin's family, but from citizens and political voices across the state.
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
Panchkula police arrest 2 for duping elderly man in digital arrest scam
Panchkula: The police arrested two individuals for allegedly duping an elderly man of Rs 57.9 lakh by 'digitally arresting' them. The accused posed as officials from the Hyderabad Police headquarters and convinced the victim that he was being digitally arrested for involvement in a money laundering case. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The accused were arrested on July 29 from Dadoli Village in Hisar. The investigation, led by SI Saurabh Singh and under the supervision of cyber SHO Yudhveer, led to the arrest of the accused individuals, Manish and Amit, both residents of Dadoli village, Hisar. Both accused have been remanded to five days of police custody, where officials will investigate their mobile phones, bank accounts, digital transactions, and connections with other accomplices involved in the scam. According to the victim, 83-year-old Rajendra, a retired HMT employee from Sector 16, Panchkula, the fraud began on Jan 16 when he received a WhatsApp video call from a person claiming to be an officer from the Hyderabad Police headquarters. The caller informed Rajendra that he was implicated in a serious money laundering case and needed to be in Hyderabad within two hours. When the elderly man expressed his inability to travel, the scammer showed him a video of a person named 'Goyal', who fled abroad after committing fraud. Rajendra was told that his Aadhaar card was linked to the fraud and that he was digitally arrested. The scammers continued to manipulate the victim's fear, threatening him with grave consequences if he informed anyone. They kept him under mental control for three days, during which they convinced him to transfer a total of Rs 57,90,000 from his various bank accounts.
