Mumbai: The Nirmal Nagar police has rescued a two-and-a-half-year-old girl, identified as Shifa Shaikh, who had been kidnapped from Bandra early last week. While the minor was found with a woman staying in a King’s Circle slum, the police say that the woman is not the kidnapper and arrests are yet to be made. The Nirmal Nagar police said that the woman who kidnapped the girl was recorded by a CCTV camera at Bandra station and does not match the description of the woman in whose the custody the girl was found.
The girl’s parents registered a complaint with the Nirmal Nagar police station on February 9, after they realised their daughter was missing. “The girl had accompanied a relative who had to visit a neighbour. She called the minor to wait downstairs promising to return in five minutes. When the relative returned, she found no trace of the girl and started looking for her. She initially thought the girl had gone back home but panicked after realising she was not there,” said a police source. The girl went missing in the afternoon of February 9 and the parents, after looking for her registered, a missing person’s complaint the same evening.
Vasudeo Jamdade, senior police inspector, said the police started scanning through the recording of various CCTV cameras in the area and in one of them saw that Shifa was walking towards Bandra station accompanied by a woman in a pink burqa. “We contacted the railway police and scanned cameras on western and harbour line platforms. In one of them, we found the woman boarding a harbour line train with the minor. After scanning footage on all harbour line platforms, we spotted them alighting at King’s Circle station,” the source added.
The Nirmal Nagar police roped in 12 police constables headed by PSI Valmiki Kore who began searching all the slums in the area. “We found the girl in the custody of a woman who alleged that she had no clue the minor was kidnapped. She said that the woman said that the girl had been left with her by a friend stating that she would come pick her up but never returned,” said Mr Jamdade.
