Baby stolen from Pollachi government hospital rescued from Kerala, 2 held

COIMBATORE: The rural police rescued a five-day-old girl, who was stolen from the Pollachi Government Hospital on Sunday, and arrested a 34-year-old woman and her minor daughter from Palakkad in Kerala in connection with the case on Monday.
The arrested people were identified as Shameena of Palakkad and her 15-year-old daughter, a Class X student.
Dhivyabharathi, 25, wife of Yunus of Kumaran Nagar in Pollachi, was fast asleep when the baby was stolen from her bed around 1am. Police initially struggled to find leads as the maternity ward was not under CCTV surveillance.
Twelve special teams were formed to find the baby, superintendent of police V Badrinarayanan said. “The teams collected more than 250 CCTV footage from public places and found two people boarding a bus to Coimbatore at the Pollachi bus stand with a baby. They were also spotted in Coimbatore railway station, from where they boarded a Palakkad train. The teams visited Palakkad and rescued the baby from them,” he said.
Police handed over the baby to Dhivyabharathi around 4am on Monday.
Shameena, who has two daughters and a 10-year-old son, had separated from her husband Hakkim five years ago and was staying with Manikandan, 29, of Palakkad. “She had undergone sterilisation but had told Manikandan that she was pregnant with his child. So, she stole the baby from the hospital to convince him that it was his. We checked her call records and tower details and learnt that she had visited the Tirupur Government Hospital also. We are probing why she visited the hospital,” said an officer.
Police are also probing involvement of any child trafficking racket, Badrinarayanan added.