Patna High Court Slams Bihar Police, Orders CBI Probe in Missing Muzaffarpur Student Case

Patna/Muzaffarpur: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has officially taken charge of the investigation into the disappearance of Yashi Singh, an MBA student who went missing from Muzaffarpur on December 12, 2022. The Patna High Court transferred the case to the CBI on Friday after nearly two years of unproductive investigation by Muzaffarpur Police and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

The case, which had become mired in investigative delays and missteps, saw police even filing a charge sheet with what the court deemed to be a misleading narrative. Despite numerous efforts, no concrete clues regarding Yashi’s whereabouts were uncovered, making her search a significant challenge for the CBI.

Yashi, a student at Lalit Narayan Mishra College of Business Management, left her maternal grandmother’s home in Muzaffarpur on the morning of December 12, 2022, to take her first-semester MBA exam. However, she never made it to the college and failed to return home by the afternoon. Her family reported her missing to the Sadar police station later that evening.

Despite a search in and around Muzaffarpur, no clues emerged, and on December 16, four days later, a case of kidnapping was registered against an unknown individual. The investigation was handed over to Sub Inspector Samvedna Snehi, but progress was slow, with key investigative steps, such as pulling the Call Detail Record (CDR) of Yashi’s phone, delayed by months.

In May 2023, police arrested Archana Kumari, whose phone had been used to access Yashi’s Facebook account. According to Archana’s written statement, Yashi had been sold to a man named Sonu, outside a three-storey yellow house in Muzaffarpur’s Chaturbhujsthan area. Archana also implicated another woman, Jyoti Kumari. However, the police failed to record Archana’s formal statement under Section 164, causing the investigation to stall.

Frustrated with the lack of progress, Yashi’s family approached the Patna High Court in 2023. The court, led by Justice Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, expressed severe dissatisfaction with the police and CID’s handling of the case. It criticized Bihar Police for their failure to protect citizens and oversee an efficient investigation. After months of weekly hearings, the High Court ordered the transfer of the case to the CBI.

In December 2023, the Bihar government announced a ₹3 lakh reward for any information leading to Yashi’s whereabouts. Initially set at ₹50,000, the reward was increased as public pressure mounted. Despite the government’s efforts, including widely publicized contact details for key police officials, no new leads have surfaced.

Now tasked with solving the case, the CBI faces a significant challenge. With two years having passed since Yashi’s disappearance and with previous investigations providing little reliable information, the agency will need to start from scratch. The victim’s lawyer, Arvind Kumar Singh, has expressed hope that the CBI will make headway where the police and CID failed, but acknowledged that the case is already deeply entangled in conflicting accounts and incomplete evidence.

“The police not only delayed the investigation but filed a false charge sheet, which has only further complicated the case,” said Singh, adding that finding Yashi after two years will be a daunting task.