Special IG on lookout for missing people

AURANGABAD: In the back drop of the high-profile Sheena Bora murder case, the Aurangabad range inspector general of police Vishwas Nangre Patil aiming to arrive at a closure of unsolved cases, organised an exhibition displaying the details of the undetected murders, kidnapping and other serious offences from across the region.
Of the hundreds of photos on display, the police also displayed photos of three half-burnt unidentified dead bodies of women that were found in Latur district in a span of two months in 2014.
This is the first-of-its-kind initiative at such a mass level.
On the first day of the exhibition, photos of dead bodies and missing persons for the past five years from all the eight districts of Marathwada were put up at the Aurangabad rural police's headquarters. Exhibition would be held at all the eight district police headquarters for the next one month. The IG office for the last one month collected and collated the pictures of the unidentified dead bodies of the victims including 34 undetected murders, 195 accidental deaths and organised them in sequence on flex boards.
Besides, the police also displayed photos of all the 744 missing persons and victims in 74 undetected kidnappings and abduction cases from the region. Nangre Patil said, "We have prepared digital dossiers of the entire data and are planning to put it on our websites. The purpose is to identify the dead bodies by coordinating with the adjoining units."
He said that unfortunately there is less priority, seriousness and sincerity in taking efforts to detect the missing cases and identify the unclaimed bodies. Police officials even blamed the callous and casual attitude that botches up the entire investigation.
Narrating about his previous attempt, Patil said, "While being SP Thane rural, I had observed that the murders are committed in Mumbai or thane and bodies were dumped on Gujarat or Nasik highways. We started highway beats and controlled this menace by deploying police vehicle after every 10 kms. This was followed by organising such exhibition at Mira road and Vasai and could get breakthrough in detecting many undetected murders."
Aurangabad superintendent of police Navinchandra Reddy said that the police are hopeful that this experiment in Marathwada will yield results and help in giving justice to victims of crimes whose perpetrators are still scot-free.
The police have also collected the data of unclaimed bikes and accordingly have also kept the data of 3,400 unclaimed vehicles lying in police campus with their number plates, chassis numbers and descriptions.
Patil said, "We want maximum number of complainants, investigating officials and relatives of the victims to visit the exhibition and assist to establish the identities."