For three decades now, the Indian government has been making amendments to the laws relating to sexual offences to make them tougher. In what seemed like a strong deterrent to crimes against minors (children below 18), it enacted a special legislation in 2012 called the POCSO or the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

Several reports have told us that such crimes have only increased since, and that major blame lies with the police failing in proper implementation of the laws and pursuing these cases with rigour. Now add to this inefficiency a fear against touching minorities, thanks to sustained scaremongering by the media-activist-politician nexus, and what you get is an atmosphere where criminals from a particular community perpetrate crimes with impunity.

This is really how a recent case in capital city New Delhi - already called one of the most unsafe cities for women - looks like. The case is of a 32-year-old man luring his 14-year-old neighbour into eloping with him. The girl, a Dalit, remained missing for three weeks.

Here's how the police messed up the case right from day one:

The local police refused to name the man in the first information report (FIR) fearing the case would turn "communal" as he is a Muslim

Living up to the police's dubious reputation of dealing with Dalits, the SC/ST Act (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act) wasn't invoked

Displaying shocking insensitivity and ignorance of laws, a senior Delhi police officer has been recorded as saying that the girl "eloped of her own will" even when the law doesn't recognise consent of minors and treats such cases as kidnappings

The crucial POCSO wasn't applied

Little attempts were made to find the girl in the first two weeks, until activists from a rights organisation stepped in. Thanks to sustained pressure from them and subsequent intervention of National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), the matter has been referred for top-level investigation now. No less than the National Investigating Agency (NIA) has been asked to intervene. A reward of Rs 50,000 was announced on the accused.

Here's the detailed story of the shocking case told in five sequences:

1. Girl Missing, So Is Accused's Name From The FIR

Swarajya met the victim’s family on Wednesday, who live huddled in one room in a decrepit multi-storey building in Sultanpuri. Each room houses a separate family; incidentally all other families in the building are Muslims. The victim's mother Manju narrated the events of the fateful day on 13 August, the day the youngest of her three daughters went missing: "My daughters left for school like any other day, around 6.30 am, after which I also left for work (Manju works as a househelp while her husband is a driver). Two of them returned on their usual time around 1.30 pm while my youngest daughter didn't. It was only when I returned in the evening around 5pm that they told me she is missing. They told me that our neighbour, Saddam Ansari, met them on their way to the school and took them to a park a little faraway in Rohini, where they all stayed till afternoon. They never showed up at the school that day at all. When the girls decided to return home from the park, Saddam told them to leave the youngest one behind. When my girls resisted, he threatened them with dire consequences."

The eldest daughter, also a minor, told Swarajya that Saddam and their missing sister had planned the outing in the park the previous evening. In the morning, she told her sisters to take a casual dress along so they could change and sit in the park without raising suspicion of passersby and cops. They went to the park as planned but didn't change into the casual clothes. Around 1 pm, Saddam called up one of his friends, Kailash, to escort the girls home. "When we realised that my sister wasn't returning with us, we held her arm forcefully but Saddam shouted at us. He said she is not coming with us. We were scared but we thought he would drop her home later," she told Swarajya. She said Saddam had been routinely talking to the girls over the phone secretly, and had gifted the youngest daughter a wristwatch recently.

Manju said, "I looked everywhere, in the parks, in the neighbourhood, but failed to find her. I went to Saddam's house but his parents rudely told me they don't know anything. Around 8 pm, we went to the police station."

Thus began a cycle of humiliations for the family.

Manju's 24-year-old brother Deepak, who accompanied her sister and elder niece to the Sultanpuri police station, told Swarajya that assistant sub-inspector Dharam Singh registered an FIR but refused to note down the details of the accused after hearing his name. "He asked us why we are even talking about the man when our concern is only our daughter. He said he has nothing to do with the man and told us to bring the girl's photograph on our next visit," he said.

Contents of the FIR (a copy of which is with Swarajya) reveal the police's questionable approach to the case right from day one. It records Manju’s statement that "she fears that an unidentified man has lured her daughter and took her away" (translated from Hindi by Swarajya). This is despite Manju's elder daughter, who went to the police station as an eye-witness, mentioning Saddam's role in front of the cop. The FIR says the girl went to school in her uniform but carried a green-coloured salwar suit with her.

The next day, Manju handed the cops a photograph of the girl. But when the family visited Dharam Singh again a day later to inquire about the progress, he told them the photograph had been misplaced and the family must furnish a new one. Manju told Swarajya, "They want the photograph in a particular format that cost Rs 500. We are already poor and their negligence forced us to spend twice the amount."

She said that on her insistence, the cops called Saddam's younger brother Afsaar to the police station but "were soft on him and let him get away easily". Two weeks passed, and the case didn't move forward, she said.

That's when activist Satish Vaid, who is associated with a Hindu rights organisation named Agniveer, approached the victim family.