Narendra Singh and his wife Najma haven’t seen their two kids for five long years after the couple was jailed for a crime they never committed.
The couple was recently released from jail and since has been desperately trying to trace their son Ajeet and daughter Anju who were five and three years respectively at the time they were jailed.
Narendra Singh and his wife Najma were wrongly accused of murdering a five-year-old boy in 2015.
They were residents of Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
While Ajeet has been traced to the state children’s home for boys in Firozabad, Anju has been living in the state children’s home for girls in Kanpur.
Authorities had handed the children to a child protection home in Agra in October 2019 after their grandfather Bhagwan Das was unable to take care of them due to financial constraints.
“Both the children were living in separate children’s homes. They were sent to separate facilities after age verification revealed they were above 10 years,” a report quoted Agra Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairman Gopal Sharma as saying.
The couple would be meeting CWC members to unite with their children.
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Lawyer Vansho Baboo, who had represented the innocent couple said the CWC had shifted the children from the child protection home to separate facilities despite they being less than 10 years old.
“My children had to live like orphans for no fault of theirs. I and my wife had to spend five years in jail for a crime we never committed,” said Narendra Singh.
Agra district magistrate, Prabhu N. Singh assured all assistance to bring the children back to Agra.
Meanwhile, the additional district and session courts have directed the senior superintendent of police to initiate strict action against the investigation officer for his negligence in probing the murder in which the couple was wrongly accused.
The court also directed the police to reinvestigate the case on the basis of available evidence and arrest the real culprit.
The then sub-inspector, Chidanand Singh also admitted in court that he did not even try to find out against whom the FIR had been registered in the murder case.