In search of the body of Meerut University lecturer Kavita Rani, Uttar Pradesh Police have, instead, stumbled upon six other bodies. The six bodies, all of them that of women, were fished out of water in the last two days in Meerut Zone by divers employed by the police to locate the lecturer’s body. Over 50 divers have been put on the job by the police.

The bodies were found in Bulandshaher, Baghpat and Meerut districts of the state and police have decided to get DNA tests done to ascertain if any of the bodies is that of Kavita. Meerut SSP Navniet Sekera said, “We have taken Ravindra Pradhan, the main accused in the Kavita murder case to identify all the six bodies found in the last two days, but he has not identified any of them to be that of Kavita’s.”

So far, one body has been identified as that of one Sarla from Delhi. According to the police, she was murdered by her neighbour and the body was thrown in the river in Baghpat. Another body of a 25-year-old woman was found on Tuesday evening in a canal near Kotwali (rural) in Bulandshaher. Pradhan was taken to identify the body, but the result was negative. Two more bodies were found in a river in Bulandshaher on Tuesday.

This year’s police record of Meerut Zone state that as many as 24 women are missing and cases of kidnapping or murder have been registered in relation to all these missing cases. Sources add that in many cases, FIRs have been registered in these cases after a lot of dilly-dallying. IG (Meerut Zone) Jagmohan Yadav, however, said, “All efforts are made to trace missing people. We have recovered 18 bodies of murdered persons in Meerut Zone this year.”

... contd.