A minor girl who claimed she was a Kedarnath deluge victim and her family had succumbed to the floods last year returned to her family in Ghaziabad.
Additional Director-General of Police (law and order) Ram Singh Meena said the 13-year-old girl had given a fabricated story that linked her to the June 2013 Kedarnath deluge. “The minor’s separation from her family has no links with the deluge,” he said.
“The minor had run away from her family in Ghaziabad on June 28 this year. By her statements, it can be ascertained that she spoke about her link to Kedarnath after someone told her she could receive compensation,” Mr Meena said.
On August 26, the minor was traced in Tehri district’s Chamba area where she was found asking for food at a hotel. On being questioned by the police, she said she had been rescued from the 2013 floods by the Army and dropped in Haridwar.
The minor was spotted in Haridwar by one Ajay – a scrap dealer – who brought her to Tehri district’s Koti village where she stayed with his family.
But she ran away to Chamba after alleging that she was raped by another scrap dealer in Koti.
“When the police investigated the case, it was found that she had fabricated her father’s identity as a mule owner in Kedarnath. She had also lied about her own identity and that her family had been swept away in the floods,” Mr Meena said.
The police traced the minor’s father in Ghaziabad during investigations. Her father informed the police that she ran away from the house in 2012 also after entering into frequent altercations with her mother, he said. Though the probe into the alleged rape is underway, the minor, who was kept at Balika Niketan here, was returned to her family in Ghaziabad, Mr Meena added.
