Vishal And Every Child

On 29 July 29 1981, the day of the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, Vishambar Mehrotra was in central London at his office on Fleet Street, with his two children Vishal aged eight and Mamta aged seven, watching the procession. As they walked home to Putney, Vishal disappeared. In 1982, seven months after his disappearance, Vishal's partial remains were found by pigeon shooters in a remote marshland at a farm in Rogate, near the Hampshire-West Sussex border 40 miles from where he disappeared. The only solace for the family was that their child was no longer with his abductors.

Based on the evidence compiled over 42 years, the family believes that Vishal's disappearance is linked to a wider child abuse network. The police had ample evidence to pursue this lead and covered up the crime, leaving the perpetrators free to abuse other children. For 42 years the family has been traumatised by police inaction as the leads kept piling up. Then in 2023, the BBC released the number one podcast show, Vishal which details how Sussex police mishandled new evidence and allegedly did not follow up on leads promptly even during the period the family believes that Vishal was still alive.  

Journalist Colin Campbell published a series of articles between 2020 and 2023, tracking new developments in the case. As a result of the podcast and the emergence of new evidence, and the public pressure that followed Sussex Police agreed to re-examine Vishal’s case with a limited inquiry. 

The family that is based in India is asking for the entire case to be re-examined with every single piece of evidence considered. They believe that institutional racism has played a role in the lack of interest and resources in their case. The UK police have claimed over the years that they lack the resources to pursue new evidence in the case but in the case of the Madeleine McCall abduction have spent £13 million on the investigation.  

Vishal’s sister has appealed to the Commissioner for Children in the UK, Rachel De Souza, the Minister of Women and Children in India, Smriti Irani and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk to ensure that every aspect of her brother's case is re-examined and that at long last he receives the justice that he and every child who has ever been abducted deserves.  

Vishal's case shines a light on police apathy, cover-up of crimes and institutional biases. Justice delayed in this case is nevertheless justice served for Vishal, his family, and every family that has had to live with having a young child abducted, trafficked, and killed. No family should ever go through what his family has had to; 42 years of injustice.   

Global estimates of domestic children trafficked vary due to issues with countries collecting data and reporting it. According to a United Nations report the most common form of human trafficking (79 per cent) is sexual exploitation. 

The number of children trafficked in India has risen sharply. As per the latest figures from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 59,262 children went missing in India in 2020. With 48,972 children staying untraced from the previous years, the total number of missing children has gone up to 1,08,234. 

On average, 29 children in Madhya Pradesh and 14 in Rajasthan went missing every day in 2021, according to a new report by NGO Child Rights and You (CRY), which gathered the information through RTIs.