Maha: 4-yr-old abducted from Palghar, rescued in Mumbai

Palghar: A four-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped in Palghar district by a woman, who later abandoned the child in Mumbai, a police official said on Monday. The girl was rescued by the Mumbai police and reunited with her parents, he said.

The 22-year-old woman kidnapped the girl from her school at Virar in Palghar on March 31, Arnala Sagri police station's inspector Keshav Naik said. She then abandoned the girl in the city where a policeman spotted the child crying and wandering alone in Mahalakshmi.

The policeman took the girl to the Gaondevi police station where the security personnel made enquiries to search for her parents, Naik said. The police managed to reunite the child with her parents on Sunday, he said.

During the probe, which was later transferred to the Arnala Sagri police, it was found that the woman had kidnapped the girl to take revenge from the child's father, with whom she was in a relationship, Naik said. The woman, a resident of Virar, was arrested on Sunday and booked under relevant sections, he added.

In a similar incident, a five-year-old girl was kidnapped from outside her house in Nallasopara area of Palghar on March 24. The child was later found dead in the ladies' toilet of Navsari railway station in Gujarat.

On March 28, the police arrested the accused 22-year-old woman, who was reportedly in a relationship with the victim's father and wanted to marry him. However, he was dilly-dallying on marriage and this enraged her. To teach him a lesson, the woman kidnapped and killed his daughter, the police said.