Nithari (Uttar Pradesh): For 22 months, no one — barring sections of the media — lent them a sympathetic ear.
Even the kidnapping and recovery of the son of a rich businessman in the vicinity did not move the authorities to act on the disappearance of 38 children from poor families in Nithari.
But now, as India's goriest crime saga unfolds in chilling detail, VIPs are making a beeline to Nithari village.
Thursday was the turn of Uttar Pradesh PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav to descend on Nithari, an overgrown, filthy semi-urban village in Noida.
Yadav, brother of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, was the first minister from the state to visit the bereaved families — almost six days after skeletal remains of at least 20 children were unearthed from a drain in Sector 31, just yards away from the Nithari village.
But his remarks over the macabre crime saga were shocking. "Such incidents keep happening and have happened in the past also. However, what deserves to be appreciated is that our policemen have worked out the case so fast," he told reporters.
"And you can see that we have also taken prompt punitive action against officials who were guilty of neglect," he added, referring to the dismissal of six policemen and suspension of a superintendent of police and a senior superintendent of police on Wednesday.
Yadav, who is also the minister of energy and agriculture marketing, distributed cheques worth Rs.5,00,000 to a number of family members of those children whose remains have been identified.
A four-member central government committee, set up Wednesday by minister of women and child development Renuka Chowdhary, also visited the unfortunate village.
Manjula Krishnan, joint secretary in the ministry, interacted with the villagers and the inconsolable parents. The members also visited the bungalow of Moninder Singh Pandher, a businessman and the main accused in the horrifying case.
On Wednesday, a clutch of Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) leaders, whose Noida functionaries had not bothered to sound any alarm all these months, converged at Nithari.
BJP leader Vinay Katiyar made a round of the village, home to over 25,000 migrants mainly from West Bengal, and demanded that the state government resign on moral grounds.
"The Nithari killings are just not a result of police negligence but also government apathy," Katiyar said.
BJP's local MP Ashok Pradhan, who residents alleged had never bothered to pay attention to their plight for two years also, met the villagers in the glare of the media and blamed the state government for the killings.
Former prime minister V.P. Singh and Jan Morcha leader Raj Babbar have also visited Nithari. While Singh demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, Babbar blasted the government and police for inaction for two long years.
The villagers are, however, not impressed. Subash Kumar, a rickshaw puller, derided the government's efforts to dole out money to parents of the innocent children who were killed allegedly by Moninder Singh and his aide.
"For two years nobody listened us. Nithari's residents kept going to the police station and the police was not bothered," Kumar told IANS. "Nobody listened to us. Now everyone is coming here. Can the money bring back the children?"
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