Girl chosen for National Bravery award in eye of storm

A 16-year-old girl, who has been selected for coveted National Bravery award for foiling bid of two men to abduct her, is in the centre of controversy as police have denied happening of any such incident and have filed a closure report in a court after a probe.
Maleka Singh Tak, a class XI student, hogged headlines in local newspapers in February last year by claiming that she fought with two miscreants, who tried to push her into an SUV, and foiled their attempt.
Her parents said that she showed extraordinary presence of mind and courage in saving herself from the miscreants at Janpath road in Shyam Nagar for which she was selected for the bravery award.

Maleka's name figures in the list of the awardees released by Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW) yesterday.
On contrary to what the girl and her parents claim, police says that there was no evidence of such incident and they concluded and informed the court that the incident was "fake".
"Investigating officer in a detailed investigation could not find anything to substantiate the claim. It turned out to be a fake incident so FIR was put," SHO Shyam Nagar Amir Hasan told PTI today.

Police have submitted a closure report in the case in October last year, he said.
However, the girl's mother, Nidhi Singh Tak, said that police did not do their job and the family have started process to get the case re-investigated.

She refused to elaborate on that process.
In the FIR, police have raised doubts over the sequence of events narrated by the girl and finally said that the incident was found "untrue".
Police were verbally informed by her parents on the night of February 15 after the girl returned from the tuition but they filed FIR next day.
The girl said that she was proud of herself but said that the matter of police investigation was handled by her parents.
"I do not know anything about the police investigation... that matter (result of police investigation) is being handled by my parents," the girl Maleka said.

When contacted, programme officer at the office of Indian Council for Child Welfare(ICCW), who identified herself as Mrs Sinha said the office was not aware of the fact about the probe.
"We were not informed about the result of the police investigation. We will examine and verify it," she told over phone.
She said that they seek application from candidates with two endorsements including that of district collector.