Annual Report 1999-2000 Illegal detention of a three-year-old child for ten years due to apathy of the police and other authorities (Case No. 78/25/98-99) > Syed Shahabuddin, former MP, drew the attention of the Commission to the plight of a young girl who had witnessed a murder, and was thereafter, detained in police custody for about ten years, as a result of which her childhood was lost. The incident had been reported in The Times of India under the caption 'Witness spends 10 years in custody— Case yet to begin'. The Commission immediately took note of the letter and called for a report from the DGP, West Bengal. The office of the DGP forwarded the report, which stated that although the name of the girl had not been mentioned by the complainant or in the newspaper item, the report was presumably about a girl named Kalpana Mistry. According to the report, on 30 March 1990, the learned SJDM, Kalyani Nadia, had ordered that Kalpana Mistry, who was an eyewitness in a case in which her father had allegedly murdered her own mother, should be lodged at Liluaha Home and produced in the court, as and when required. She was last produced in the court on 20 September 1996, and she failed to identify the accused. She was taken to Liluaha Home on 29 September 1996. In between, in 1992, she was shifted from the Liluaha Home to a Child Care Home (run by an NGO) on the orders of Shri R.M. Zameer, IAS, SP and ex- officio Director ofSpecial Welfare, West Bengal, for proper upkeep, schooling, protection, care and further rehabilitation! However, when the said NGO moved the learned court for approval of transfer, the learned Sessions Judge termed the act as highly irregular, and asked for an explanation from the Director of Social Welfare for having transferred the child without approval and intimation to the court. Subsequently, she was again sent to the Liluaha Home. Through its memo dated I September 1997, the Social Welfare Department again directed the transfer ofthe child to a Government approved/recognised NGO Child Care Home for her education, care and further rehabilitation. The report stated that the court had not passed any order so far. The gist of the report from the office of DGP, West Bengal, was sent to Syed Shahabuddin for his comments. Shahabuddin expressed his anguish both at the callousness of the civil and police authorities who, without a thought regarding the tender age of the child, had kept the girl in isolation, and also the court for not even having cared to pass an order for her fumre guardianship. He suggested that since the State is a guardian in such cases, the child should be handed over to the SOS Children Home and the NHRC should give suitable compensation which should be deposited in her name as a trust for her future. The Commission expressed its shock at the inhuman and apathetic manner in which the case was handled by the police and other authorities. The Commission found the very idea of retaining a girl child, who was only three years old at the time of the incident, and considering her competent to be a witness in a court of law, and keeping her waiting for the commencement of the trial for ten long years, as shocking. The appalling lack 132