Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai
Mumbai, Oct 18: The Government Railway Police (GRP) solved the kidnapping of a one-year-old baby girl from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) within 24 hours and arrested a 22-year-old woman who allegedly abducted the child to use her for begging.
The accused, identified as Pooja Shinde, was produced before a railway court, which remanded her to police custody. The baby, who was found unharmed, has been reunited with her family.
According to police, the baby girl was sleeping with her parents in the main concourse of CSMT while they waited for their train to their hometown in Dharashiv. The child’s parents work as labourers and were planning to travel by the Latur Express.
The family reached CSMT around 7 pm on October 15 and stepped outside the terminus for dinner about an hour later. They returned by 10 pm and settled near a steel bench in the main concourse. As their train was scheduled to arrive on platforms 12 and 13, they decided to catch some sleep while waiting for it.
The baby’s mother later told police that she remembered feeding her daughter at around 4 am before falling asleep again.
Around 5.25 am, a group of police personnel entered the main concourse, blowing whistles and asking passengers to wake up. The parents then discovered that their daughter was missing. After searching the area without success, they approached the police for help.
The police took the couple to the CCTV surveillance room and showed them footage from the terminus. The recordings captured a young woman carrying the baby away. The suspect was wearing an old salwar and had covered her head with a red dupatta.
The CSMT GRP immediately registered a kidnapping case. Joint teams from the CSMT GRP and the GRP crime branch launched an investigation and examined CCTV footage from various railway stations.
The operation was conducted under the supervision of DCP Pradnya Jedge, CSMT GRP Senior Inspector Sambhaji Katare and Senior Inspector Anil Kadam. Within 24 hours, the police tracked down Shinde and arrested her.
According to sources, CCTV footage subsequently showed Shinde carrying the child while begging. Investigators also found that she had cut the baby’s hair to alter her appearance and make identification difficult.
Police confirmed that the child was unharmed and was safely reunited with her parents.
Shinde has been booked under Section 139(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which criminalises kidnapping a minor or unlawfully taking custody of a child with the intention of using the child for begging.
Police further said that the accused has a previous criminal record involving theft and had earlier been booked by Sion police along with her husband.