NEW DELHI, April 4: Kamal Bhatia, 33, left home on the morning of March 31. He had been on drugs for a long time and was in the process of kicking off the habit. Though his relatives reported him missing the same morning, the police in Paharganj filed an FIR only the next day. And his relatives found him on April 2 at 8.45 p.m. at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital mortuary.``We had been searching in all the hospitals and mortuaries, when we were told about an unidentified body at LNJP,'' his cousin Sunil Bhatia told Express Newsline. The body will be handed over to relatives after a post-mortem on April 4.
Bhatia says that the Paharganj police refused to file a missing persons' report on March 31. ``They asked us to wait a day. On April 1, a report was lodged, but we traced Kamal in a mortuary not because of any help from the police, but by our own efforts,'' says Bhatia.
Kamal was found lying unconscious by the Nabi Karim police on April 1 at 11.45 a.m. He was taken to LNJP hospital where he died at 3.15 p.m. ``But we came to know only the next night,'' said Bhatia.
Nabi Karim SHO Kanta Prasad said that they had flashed information about the discovery of Kamal Bhatia on the wireless. ``Our first duty is always to trace the relatives, and we did our best,'' he says.
But the Paharganj police did not link the discovery with the missing persons' report filed with them. Surender Kumar, SHO, Paharganj Police Station, said that the report was filed and the control room was also informed. But he could not explain why the message flashed by Nabi Karim was not pursued by them.
Kamal Bhatia had been very unwell on the night of March 30. The next morning he removed all his clothes except his underwear and went towards the toilet with a towel on his shoulder, his cousin Sunil Bhatia said. ``We thought he was going for a bath. But he went out by a staircase near the toilet. When he didn't return after an hour, we went to the Paharganj police,'' says Bhatia.
According to the complaint, Kamal Bhatia had taken the medicine meant for three days at one go before he disappeared, Surender Kumar said.
However, the fact remains that the Pahadganj police could not find him, says Sunil Bhatia.
``Had my cousin been traced in time, we would have seen him alive and probably saved his life,'' says Bhatia. ``But the police obviously does not care. Or how could the Paharganj police ignore the message flashed by Nabi Karim police,'' he asks.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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