A 22-year-old woman and her boyfriend were arrested by the Kerala police on Wednesday for allegedly abandoning her 11-month-old son outside a shopping centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
According to the police, Rosemary had allegedly abandoned her baby on the instructions of her boyfriend Sajin (27).
On January 22, Rosemary, whose husband moved to Dubai five months ago, went missing along with her son. Her family filed a missing persons complaint the same day with the Kanjiramkulam police station.
“The relatives of the girl had filed a missing case with us and we were on the hunt for them since then. The woman had travelled to Tamil Nadu along with Sajin and kept shifting locations,” said SI Prathapachandran, who is heading the investigation.
It is unclear if Rosemary had been coerced into a wedding and had been unhappy from the beginning but the couple had been on the run for a few months.
According to the police, Rosemary, her baby and Sajin stayed near temples in Kancheepuram and Salem in Tamil Nadu. In an effort to track them down, the police instructed Rosemary’s relatives to keep contacting the two.
It was then that Rosemary called her family and threatened to abandon her son if the missing complaint was not withdrawn.
“She had threatened the family saying she’ll abandon the child if the missing case is not taken back. On February 7, the family received a phone call from Rosemary and she had informed that the baby was abandoned in front of a shopping centre in Thiruvananthapuram,” said Prathapachandran.
Rosemary’s family rushed to the Akshaya Shopping Centre in Neyyattinkara after receiving the call and found the 11-month-old baby abandoned outside the building.
But the police managed to track them down soon enough. Prathapachandran said, “We then asked the locals and finally found the duo near Azhimala, 25 kilometres from Thiruvananthapuram city on the same day. The two were planning to take the evening train as Sajin’s friend had arranged a job at a textile shop in Tirupur for both of them.”
Sajin and Rosemary were arrested and now in judicial custody, while the baby is now under the care of the mother’s family. The two have been charged under IPC sections 317 (Exposure and abandonment of child under twelve years), 34 IPC (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 75 of the JJ (Punishment for cruelty to child).
According to the police, Sajin has several cases registered against him for petty crimes in Vizhnjam and other places.