On Monday in Parliament Julian Knight the MP from Solihull for Conservative wrote a question to the Government about the murder of Vishal Mehrotra who was killed 41 years ago. The person who answered his question was Chris Philp, the Minister of State, Home Department. The question was published in TheyWorkForYou which is available here and it linked a piece in Wikipedia that explains that Vishal Mehrotra was born in September 1972 in India and he was emigrated to the UK with his family six years later in 1978. Three years later just before his ninth birthday at the end of July he was abducted from Putney, London and his partial remains were discovered in February 1982 at a Rogate based farm in West Sussex. The killers were never identified and no one has ever been charged with his murder. The piece also includes a link from 11th May in the BBC available here under the headline of Vishal Mehrotra: Sussex Police to re-examine case of murdered boy which was written by Colin Campbell that “Sussex Police is to re-examine the case of a murdered schoolboy” and that “Police told Vishal’s father Vishambar Mehrotra on a visit to his house that detectives had been given “clear direction” to “advance” the case.” and a little later the document includes

Vishal’s father had previously accused Sussex Police of not fully investigating Vishal’s case – a claim that police deny. After he was told by senior officers on Wednesday that a number of lines of inquiry would be re-examined, he said: “Well, I am very pleased but I am also sceptical because I am not so sure how much and when they are going to actually investigate.”

So back to the question and response from the Government on Monday this week and interestingly Julian claims that the Sussex Police is not focusing on the murder which is not what the BBC has suggested.

Julian Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the implications for its policies of the decision by Sussex Police not to review the case of Vishal Mehrotra.

Chris Philp: Decisions concerning individual investigations are the responsibility of the respective police force’s chief officers to make. As police forces are independent of government, it would not be appropriate to comment on such decisions. Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne said she was “deeply moved and reminded again of the awful tragedy that the Mehrotra family has endured for so many years” after listening to the podcast.

The only other MP who has ever raised this theme was Zac Goldsmith who back in November 2014 stated here under the headline of Historical Child Sex Abuse which he spoke about it along with several other MPs including Tim Loughton from West Sussex. Here is the comment from Zac

Things have moved on, and today the Met is investigating allegations that at least three young boys were murdered by this depraved network of VIP and MP paedophiles. Operation Midland is the name of the investigation. On the back of that, a retired magistrate, Vishambar Mehrotra, the father of eight-year-old Vishal, who disappeared in 1981 and whose body was found a year later in West Sussex, has come forward to say that at the time of his son’s disappearance he was contacted by a male prostitute who told him that his son had probably been killed by VIP paedophiles linked to Elm Guest House. He recorded that conversation and took it to the police, but nothing happened. Again, the evidence just evaporated.