Parents ‘go missing’ after boy dies at AIIMS, mom tweets later, says son attacked
Lucknow: Delhi Police on Friday alerted cops in the city to track down the parents of a 12-year-old boy who was brought to AIIMS earlier this week with severe injuries all over his body and died during treatment.
Ranjan’s parents – Pooja and Sachivanand Pandey, a labourer – allegedly went missing 10 minutes after they were informed about the boy’s death.
Ghaziabad cops said that doctors at AIIMS had submitted a report to Delhi Police, saying they suspected negligence by parents as the cause of death. But the post-mortem is pending as parents’ permission is needed.
According to the account given by the hospital, Ranjan was admitted by his parents on August 23 in a critical condition. There were multiple injury marks — fresh wounds as well as older scars — on his body.
“Asked about the boy’s injuries, the parents couldn’t give a satisfactory response to the doctors,” said Indirapuram ACP Swatantra Singh.
After Ranjan succumbed to his injuries on Thursday, doctors and staff informed the parents, but they couldn’t be found in the hospital soon after. AIIMS contacted Delhi Police as the couple had given Ashok Nagar as their address.
“Cops went to Ashok Nagar in Delhi, but they couldn’t find Pooja and Sachivanand. They later got to know that the family lived in Ghaziabad’s Khora Colony from tracking their mobile number details,” the ACP said.
The Indirapuram ACP said a team from Khora police station was sent to their house but the home was locked. “Since then, police teams have been looking for the parents. For now, the post-mortem examination is stuck,” Singh said.
Though cops are searching for the couple, Pooja posted videos and photos of Ranjan on her X (formerly Twitter) account. In the two tweets posted just after midnight on Friday, she tagged UP Police and the chief minister’s office, claiming that one of her neighbours thrashed her son.
The first tweet was posted at 12.32am, in which Pooja alleged that Balgovind attacked her son with a sharp object and he died at AIIMS. The second tweet just three minutes later included two videos. One of the clips shows the boy, whose face is swollen with multiple wounds along with injuries visible on his legs and torso, saying Balgovind entered their house and attacked him with a knife. The second clip is from the hospital, apparently showing the boy’s bed from a distance.
The neighbour, Balgovind Chauhan, was detained for questioning on Friday, said SHO Santosh Tiwari of Khora police station.
He said the investigation in the case can progress after the parents are tracked down and an autopsy report gives them a cause of death.
He said preliminary investigation has found that Pooja had a long-standing dispute with Balgovind over dumping garbage in the area. Both of them would constantly complain to police about each other, with at least 50 calls having been made between them to cops, over trivial issues in the past.
“On April 20, police had sent a show-cause notice under section 111 of the CrPc to both of them,” Tiwari said.
The SHO said there are two other cases registered against Pooja and one against Sachivanand.
In 2019, the labourer was booked in the city for alleged molestation. The cases against Pooja were filed in June and July this year under sections 336 (endangering human life or the personal safety of others), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.
“One of the neighbours named Ompal had shifted to Noida after locking his own house in Khora Colony after a fight with Pooja,” the SHO added.
Before the hospitalisation, Ranjan was reported missing by the family on July 29 and was found on August 12. Another video found by investigators on Friday shows the boy, also visibly injured and crying, crouching on the floor and saying that the neighbour hit him.
