January 05, 2007	Friday	Zilhaj 14, 1427

NEW DELHI, Jan 4: Six Indian policemen have been sacked and three senior officers suspended for incompetence over the serial murders of 17 people, mainly children, officials said on Thursday.

Public anger against the police has been growing since the remains of the victims, who were kidnapped, raped and murdered, were found in the affluent Noida suburb near New Delhi last week.

A businessman and his domestic helper have been arrested and charged with the crimes, but furious residents have accused police of failing to act because many of the missing belonged to poor families.

Residents also say about 40 children had disappeared in the area over the past two years.

“Three senior officials were suspended for three months and six policemen were dismissed after an inquiry team found them responsible,” said Navin Chandra Bajpai, the top bureaucrat of Uttar Pradesh state, where Noida is situated.

The suspended officials will have to explain their case, after which the panel will decide on further action.

Bajpai said the government may also press charges against the police officials. Recent days have seen rioting around the Noida “house of horrors”, with police pelted with stones.

The national government meanwhile attacked the provincial police and offered a probe into the grisly crime by its elite Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

“The law and order in Uttar Pradesh is bad and had the state government acted earlier, lives of so many children would not have been lost,” Sriprakash Jaiswal, India’s junior home minister, told reporters in Noida.—AFP