Foreign Registration Office

FRO

the office

policeman

commissioner

deputy commissioner

Sanjay Patil

concerned policeman

Pimpri police

B Mudiraj

Indian government

police commissioner

The Foreign Registration Office () has been in the red on many occasions in the past, when there have been complaints about touts making a fast buck here or foreigners overstaying their welcome in the city, as reported by this newspaper in the past. Now, in a shocking incident, it has emerged that a cop fromhas allegedly molested a 13-year-old, belonging to a Pakistani Sindhi family, which resides in Pimpri. The family is here on a long term visa (LTV).At around 8 pm on Tuesday, the cop — Anand — landed up at the family’s home in the city’s suburb, on the pretext of verifying documents. Thehandles the Pakistan desk at FRO, located on the premises of the’s office in Camp. According to police sources, the victim’s father is physically disabled and cannot walk without support. He runs a small cosmetics shop to sustain his family.Sources from FRO have told Mirror that during questioning it emerged that Anand was acquainted with the family and that the overseas national had sought help regarding LTV.Soon after stepping into their home, the accused allegedly asked the physically disabled man to step out and get photocopies of the passport and other documents. The man wanted to send his daughter on the errand, but the cop insisted that the father carry out the responsibility, claiming that documents like passports, etc, are important and should not be handed over to a child. When the man left his home, Anand asked the girl for a glass of water. When she returned, she was shocked to find him allegedly in a state of undress. As he was in the process of cajoling the girl to perform an illicit act, her father returned. Anand fled the scene soon after. The weeping child then narrated the entire incident to him.The FRO source continued, “He did not inform the department that he was going on this task. Also, Sindhi immigrants from Pakistan are not treated as foreigners on par with citizens of other foreign countries. So, this sort of scrutiny that the family was being put under was unwarranted.”When contacted,of police, FRO,told Mirror, “We have a system in place wherein we randomly select foreigners who need to be visited for verification and which officer/policeman should visit him/her. But this family was not on the list at all. Therefore, there was no need for theto visit their house, especially at that hour. Hence we have suspended him and a departmental inquiry has been instituted against him.”The father of the girl met Patil on Wednesday and gave a written complaint, whereupon Patil asked him to approach the local police station.But police officials fromstation claimed that the man did not turn up here for a complaint. (In fact, the senior PI in-charge of the police station,, said on Thursday night that he was unaware of any such case.) A family acquaintance, however, said, “The family is living here at the mercy of the, and the man has been in a dilemma whether to lodge a complaint or not even though the complaint application was given at the’s office on Wednesday.”The victim’s father refused to speak to us on the issue, but his written complaint states: “We left Pakistan because we do not feel safe there. Now, you tell us what we should do.”