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EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
GANDHINAGAR, April 12: Six days after the kidnapping of three-year-old Ruchi Chavda from Gandhinagar, the police continues to remain clueless, with Special IGP, Gandhinagar Range, Amitabh Pathak, conceding that the police are yet to get concrete information from the two women arrested in connection with the case.
Rashmi Mewada, an Ahmedabad-based clairvoyant arrested on Sunday, was produced before court here on Monday. She was remanded in police custody for two days. Rashmi, a close friend of Daksha Shukla, was arrested on the charge of abetting the crime.
The Special IGP heading the investigating team told reporters that the Maruti car (GJ-1HH-5644) with bloodstains and two undergarments of a child found in Khambhatt had no connection with the kidnapping of Ruchi.
He said that similarly the chappals and a blood-stained handkerchief recovered during the search in the Balwa area had no connection with the case. The articles were shown to Ruchi's parents who told the police they did not belong to their kidnapped child, Pathak said.
Responding to a query, the police official admitted that despite extensive interrogation of Shukla and Mewada, the police had failed to get a lead in the case. Pathak said, ``Daxa [Shukla] is a very intelligent woman.''
Police plan to put Mewada through a lie-detector test.
Pathak said that although different theories, including that of a human sacrifice, were doing the rounds, it was difficult to establish a clear motive behind the kidnapping until Nilesh Jadeja, the prime accused in the case, was nabbed by the police.
On receiving information that Jadeja had gone to Bhopal, a police team was dispatched there. The team is yet to return, Pathak said.
Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya was put on the defensive when a section of the newspersons fired a volley of questions at him, seeking to know why the police had failed to achieve vital clues, despite six days of Ruchi's kidnapping and the extensive interrogations of Daxa and Rashmi in the police custody. ``The issue is very sensitive and the police is striving hard to resolve the mystery shrouding the kidnapping,'' Pandya said.
Meanwhile the Gandhinagar District Magistrate on Monday has also extended the remand of Bharatbhai Jadeja, father of the prime accused, and Gumansinh Sisodiya, driver of the van which used to take Ruchi to school.
Meanwhile, Jaisukh Shah, a reporter of a Gujarati daily, who is said to have dropped some of the children home after the Randal Ma ceremony at Shukla's house, failed to appear at the police station despite a summons. His son has sent a fax message to Gandhinagar police that his father was out of town and would go to police as soon as he returned. The police is also going through all the cassettes which were recovered from the house of Mewada. In a letter Nilesh has mentioned something about a cassette containing ``all the details''.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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