Baby stolen from Mumbai's Cama Hospital found
Cops rescue the seven-month-old from a beggar at Bombay Hospital. The beggar said a woman had handed over the baby to him and left the place.
The seven-month-old baby, who was stolen from Cama Hospital premises couple of days ago, was found with a beggar near Bombay Hospital dargah on Saturday morning. The beggar told the police that a woman had handed over the baby to him and left the place.
Explaining the sequence of events, constable Dinkar Dalvi from Azad Maidan police station said, “I was with one of the patrolling teams that were assigned the task of tracing the baby and the suspect lady. At around 9.30am on Saturday, while I was doing patrolling near Bombay Hospital, I saw a beggar with a baby boy, who looked similar to the missing baby.”
He said the police had photographs of Vishwanath Kale, the missing boy. “On matching the photograph, the baby was found to be the one missing from Cama. I then made inquiries with the 17-year-old beggar, Anil Baba Inke, who told us that the boy was handed him over to a lady fifteen minutes ago,” said Dalvi.
The police then brought Inke and baby to the Azad Maidan police station and informed superior officers and parents of Vishwanath about the incident. Inke was then shown sketch of the kidnapper lady, which he identified as the same lady who had given him the baby, police said.
Inke, who was at the police station, told DNA, “The lady had given me a bottle containing milk, some medicines of baby and Rs20 and had told me to hand over the baby to her mother, who had gone inside dargah. I was waiting there when the police team arrived and made inquiries with me about the baby. I later came to know that the baby was missing from Cama hospital.”
The police are yet to trace the kidnapper. “Had we reached 15 minutes before, we would have caught her. It seems the lady would have panicked due to the media coverage and would have got scared of being arrested by the police and hence decided to leave the baby. The way she was handed over to Inke, who is a mentally unsound teenager, it is clear that the lady had knowledge of the beggars of the area. This was a very smart ploy used by the lady,” said a police officer, requesting anonymity.