Navi Mumbai: 2-month-old girl abducted from her house rescued within 5 hours

The child was handed over to the family. Pic/Anurag Kamble

The Navi Mumbai police rescued a two-month-old girl, who was abducted by a woman from her house, within five hours. Posing as an Anganwadi worker, the accused woman took away the child from her house on the pretext of giving her polio vaccination. The child's grandmother was at home when the incident took place on March 15 at Navghar.

When the accused woman did not return with the child, the girl's father, Manoj Rajbhar, informed Uran police, who immediately started searching all the autos in the area.

"As soon as we received the information, we formed three teams, scanned CCTV footage of the market and traced the auto in which the abductor had run away. The cops reached to Dronagiri area and found the auto. The driver told the police that he had dropped the woman at Dastan Phata. The driver also said that the woman claimed to be a relative of child and said she was taking her to hospital," said senior inspector Ravindra Budhwant.

The cops rushed to Dastan Phata, where some auto drivers informed that the woman took the child to Gune Hospital in Panvel in another auto.

When the cops visited Gune Hospital and scanned the CCTV footages, they found the woman with the child. However, she was seen leaving the hospital in another auto. Continuing the chase, the cops reached Krushna Hospital in Khanda Colony, where they caught the woman with the child.

During interrogation, the woman was identified as Manisha Pawar (35), a resident of Jasai in Uran. Manisha had been married for 10 years, but was unable to bear a child. Fearing that her husband will leave her, she told the family that she was pregnant and decided to steal a baby from nearby. However, her attempt to get admitted in hospital with the child failed.

Manisha has been arrested and booked under Section 363 (abduction) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).