Mumbai: Abandoned by hubby, Congo woman flies back with a little help from cops

MUMBAI: A 36-year-old Congo woman boarded a flight for her country on Friday morning after losing her baby during birth a week ago and being deserted by her husband in June before she found support from the Sahar police on July 30.
For almost two weeks, the police provided support to Ndekono Madeka Niclette who lost her baby and also provided her with continental food as she was unable to eat the meals provided at the Women Hostel, run by an NGO in Jogeshwari.
Touched by the plight faced by Niclette, who hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo, after immigration officials did not allow her to fly back on July 23 and she was left on the airport premises for almost a week without food or money, DCP (Zone VIII) DS Swamy who supervised Sahar police officials senior inspector Sanjay Govilkar, sub-inspector Bipin Shinde and others who chipped in with money to get her continental food and followed up with the embassy to get her visa date extended till August 12 and got her the ticket to fly back.
Niclette travelled to Delhi with her husband on a tourist visa on December 17, 2019, with a validity period of May 4, 2020. However, they got stranded due to the lockdown from March 2020. "She was unable to narrate anything due to the trauma after her husband flew to Congo leaving her in Delhi without telling her anything. She communicated with us in broken English but was unable to tell the reason why her husband left her. She managed to reach Mumbai to fly back on July 23 but was stopped by immigration officials due to some technical problem in her visa--which she claimed to have re-applied but didn't get an update," said a police officer.
From July 23 to 30, Niclette kept wandering outside the international airport when the police control room informed the Sahar police about the foreign national found roaming around. "Niclette was provided with accommodation at Women's Hostel in Jogeshwari on July 30. On August 1, the pregnant woman was admitted to Trauma Care Hospital in Jogeshwari due to labour pain and lost her baby. For three days, the body of the newborn lay in hospital for the final rites to be performed in her presence. However, she was weak due to excessive loss of blood," sub-inspector Shinde told TOI.
When the hospital started pressuring the cops to make arrangements to remove the body, they got the woman's consent to perform the cremation. "The police team got in touch with people to do the rites as the Christian community at a burial place in Jogeshwari," he said.
Shinde applauded the senior officials and the team along with him followed the matter with the Embassy to arrange for her visa and also got the flight ticket through them who paid the penalty to re-issue the same flight ticket issued on July 23. The woman flew back home on Friday.