GHAZIABAD: The bodies of two siblings — a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl — were fished out from the Behta canal in Loni Border on Sunday morning. The siblings had gone missing from outside their house in Jawahar Nagar on Monday evening and a missing persons’ complaint was lodged the same day. However, police were late to take action in the case, said locals who took out a protest march on the Delhi-Saharanpur road which is close to the canal. As a result, traffic movement on the road was severely impeded for more than one hour.According to police, Saurav and Laxmi were playing outside their house before they went missing around 4pm on Monday. Their father Raju, who is a scrap dealer, approached police about their disappearance. Their grandfather Pawan said the family, along with locals, made attempts to locate the missing children but could not find them. He denied any kind of dispute or enmity with anyone and said that the family had not received any ransom or threat call.The Behta canal is located only 100 metres away from the children’s house. Neighbours said that the bodies were first spotted by a local who was passing through the area. He alerted the others and soon police were informed. The bodies were subsequently fished out of the canal as hundreds of locals gathered at the spot. As soon as the bodies were identified to be of Raju’s children, an agitated mob took over the bodies and marched on the Delhi-Saharanpur road, raising slogans against police. A massive two-km-long traffic jam was witnessed in the area throughout Sunday afternoon.Senior administrative and police officials reached the spot and tried to pacify the protesters. Local BJP MLA Nand Kishore Gujjar also turned up at the spot and assured them that appropriate action would be taken in the matter. The children’s parents later agreed to hand over the bodies to police for the post-mortem. SP (rural) Neeraj Kumar Jadaun said that it was most likely that the children fell into the drain while playing but no one witnessed that. However, the post-mortem would reveal the exact cause of the deaths, he added.On the other hand, Ranjeeta Dhama, the chairman of Loni Nagar Palika has written a letter to UP irrigation minister Dharampal Singh, seeking a no-objection certificate for construction of walls on both sides of the canal. According to Dhama, in the past eight years, at least 30 people, many animals and even vehicles have fallen into the 3-km stretch of the canal which comes under the Loni civic body. “Agricultural land has shrunk over the years and colonies have come up in its place. Now, the canal is a threat to people living in its vicinity. The portion which lies in Delhi has already been concretised and barricaded. If the NOC is given, we can do so on this side too with the civic body funds,” Dhama added.Gujjar too had sought intervention of the irrigation ministry for renovation of the canal. He had written a letter in this regard on February 21.

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