The incident took place on Friday when the child's mother was playing with her outside their house. (Representational) The Delhi Police rescued a 45-day-old infant and arrested four persons for allegedly kidnapping her from her residence in West Delhi’s Punjabi Bagh. Police on Sunday said the motive behind the incident isn’t clear as some of the accused said they were planning to sell the baby to a couple while one of their associates said she wanted to keep her.
The incident took place on Friday when the child’s mother was playing with her outside their house. An unknown woman and her associates approached the mother, distracted her, and allegedly kidnapped her baby. Police said they put several teams to the task and rescued the infant within a day.
“We received a complaint from the mother that a woman came to talk to her and kidnapped her baby. We sent several teams in the area but found no clues,” said police.
CCTVs nearby were scanned and a team under an ACP-level officer was asked to work with other district police units. During investigation, informers were deployed and asked to make a list of suspects. “Using technical surveillance, we started tracing movements of a few of the suspects. We found that a group of people were going to Nihal Vihar with a baby. We sent our team and arrested all the accused persons,” said an officer.
The accused – Bhawna (28), Rekha (50), Babita (38) and Pawan (29) – were booked for kidnapping.
The infant was rescued and her parents were informed. The girl’s mother, who works at a workshop with her husband, said, “I was playing with my child when a woman came and started to talk to me. I had never seen her in the locality. She was asking me about the houses in the area and complimented the baby… I went back inside with my daughter and went to kitchen and later realised that the woman and her associates fled with my baby. I called my husband and neighbours. We spent nearly an hour looking for her in the locality. Nobody knew the woman. I was so scared and called police.”
DCP (West) Ghanshyam Bansal said, “We rescued the baby within three hours… The accused persons were found roaming near the spot at the time of the incident. They confessed to their crime. They work odd jobs at shops and clinics. We are yet to ascertain if they were planning to sell the baby or not.”
During initial questioning, Bhavna said she suffered a few miscarriages and wanted to adopt a baby. She found the infant with her mother and planned to allegedly kidnap the girl. Her associates, however, said they didn’t want to keep the child and were looking to earn “easy money”. Police said they are checking their previous criminal records.
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