Parents’ plea to meet Mograhat girl rejected

KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Monday turned down the plea of the parents to meet the girl from Magrahat who went missing sparking allegations that she was “kidnapped”. After the girl was found on July 20, she was sent to a shelter home after she told the court that she did not want to return to her father.
Turning down the petition by her parents to meet the girl, the court said she had cited allegations against them.
Earlier, the court had directed the police to produce the girl before the court on July 27 following a petition filed on behalf of the girl’s parents. The petition was affirmed by Hindu Sanhati’s Devdutta Maji. The petitioner had alleged police inaction in the case.
The matter came up for hearing in the court of Justice Dipankar Datta on Monday. The police submitted its action-taken report to the court.
The girl went missing in May for the second time in five months. BJP state chief Rahul Sinha held a five-day dharna in front of the Magrahat police station starting July 17, on the eve of Rathayatra and Eid. They protested against police inaction and inability to "rescue" the 14-year-old girl. BJP leaders from Delhi, including Sidharth Nath Singh and M J Akbar, and the chairperson of National Commission for Women had visited Magrahat.
When the saw political protests and reports in the media about her, she called the police to inform her whereabouts. The police brought her from Sonarpur on July 20.
National Commission for Women had appeared suo motu in the case on Monday seeking to be a party in the case. The court directed the NCW to enquire and submit a report by August 5, said defence counsel Aniruddha Chatterjee.
In his complaint to the police, her father had alleged that she had been “kidnapped by armed goons from his house” at Enayatpur village. The girl, however, had told the court that she had no allegations against the boy from Magrahat’s Dihi Kalash whom her father had accused of “abducting” her. Both the girl and the boy are minors.