The court also slammed the police for failing to nab the accused, including the brother of BSP legislator Puja Pal.

Khan’s father Bande Ali Khan had filed a writ petition before the court in July last year.

In its Monday order, a copy of which was sent to the senior superintendent of police, the HC directed the investigating officer to take effective measures for tracing the youth, arrest the culprits, conduct an investigation and submit a compliance report on March 20.

SSP B P Tiwari said the Dhoomanganj police and the Jhusi police have been directed to follow the order.

In his petition, Bande Ali had made the state government, the DGP, the SSP, the station officer of Dhoomanganj and eleven others, including Pal’s brother Mangal Pal, party to the matter.

Shamshad Khan was allegedly kidnapped from his residence in Dhoomanganj area by some miscreants, including Mangal Pal. Initially the Dhoomanganj police did not lodge the FIR and the SSP did not initiate any action in this regard.

Subsequently, Shamshad’s brother Almas and mother Anwari Begum met Chief Minister Mayawati and DGP Vikram Singh, on whose order an FIR was lodged with the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow on June 16, 2008 and then transferred to Allahabad for further action.

Since the matter involved the brother of a ruling party legislator, the Dhoomanganj police did not mention Mangal Pal, his friends Ramu Agrawal and Raju Singh in the FIR.

The police lodged FIR against eight persons, including Pankaj Patel, Sambhu Patel, Pawan Patel, Raju Yadav, Gaurav Joshi, Saurabh Singh, Amit Patel and Deepu.

Almas alleged that while Pawan and Deepu were drivers of Puja Pal, the others were her supporters, a charge denied by the legislator.