"It's Been 6 Days": Missing 19-Year-Old's Family Alleges Police Inaction

Najeeb Ahmed, a 27-year-old student at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, went missing in 2016. He has not been found till date. Cut to 2025, Sneha Debnath, a 19-year-old student of Delhi University, has been missing for six days.

Ms Debnath is a student at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College. Her family, originally from Tripura, has been staying in Delhi for many years. On July 7, she went to drop a friend at the Sarai Rohilla railway station. A cab driver dropped Sneha near Signature Bridge, but after some time, her mobile was switched off. She has been missing since.

An alleged "suicide note" has been found from the student's room in Delhi, which says she had decided to "end my life" by jumping from the Signature Bridge.

Bipasha Debnath, her sister, said the letter is just "crisp four lines". 

"I mean, a suicide letter can't be of four lines, right? It doesn't make sense at all. If you read the letter, there's no clue as to why she was depressed, what was happening, nothing. It's just crisp four lines. And the location was mentioned there, Signature Bridge," the 24-year-old sister of Sneha told NDTV. 

The elder sister pointed out that Sneha was brilliant at studies, but she was very young in years and someone may have manipulated her. 

"Very, very specifically, the location was mentioned. If she wanted to die, there are a lot of ways to do it at home, nearby. You don't have to go all the way to a place where 60 cameras are not working. It does show something, right? It could be somebody has told her, somebody could have, you know, manipulated her.  She's just 19. She could be an overachiever. She's smart. At the end of the day, she's just 19 years old," said the elder sister, with her mother and a cousin standing next to her outside the Mehrauli police station. 

Distressed by the apathy of the cops, Bipasha further said she has been running from one place to the other and is being told "magic doesn't happen in a day".

"I am alone. I have to look after my parents...I am running from this place to that place to third place to fourth place. And everywhere I go, I hear the same thing. The magic doesn't happen in one day. It's been six days," she said.

"What are you looking for? What are you getting? You don't even have an assigned unit till now. My investigating officer should have time to look into the case. I am not blaming him. He is the most sensible officer. He is not getting the time to investigate. He is so busy with other work," the sister lamented.

Asked about the response she got from the cops when she told them about the alleged note, Bipasha said they dismissed it as a "made-up thing". 

"You are not getting a body... So what is it, sir? Even if she is a runaway, she must have made calls to 10 different people, right? You check it. You are not getting anything from there as well. We have given you the Macbook. It's been six days. You are not able to open the Macbook. You have the cyber unit. You have the forensic unit. And it's the national capital. Kids hack Instagram these days. Are you even coordinating with your team? I feel like we are doing more work," she said. 

"How will you know? Your CCTV camera is not working. You can't do anything. You can't get a call record. You can't open your MacBook," said Bipasha, who has been making the rounds of the police station.

Delhi Police and a team from the National Disaster Response Force of NDRF are conducting search operation in the Yamuna for the missing student. 

Sneha's mother, Pinki Debnath, too has rejected the claims that her daughter was "depressed" or reserved. 

"She was not sad at all. She was with me all the time. She used to joke with me all day. She would say, 'Mom, you are so short,'" her mother said.

Pinki Debanth said all she wants is to be with her daughter.

"My daughter should be found from anywhere. I don't want anything else. I just want my daughter," she said, fighting back tears.