The Panvel Taluka police arrested a 35-year-old woman for abducting a two-year-old girl from the Panvel railway station footpath on Thursday morning.
The woman has been identified as Shewanti Katkari, a resident of Katkaripada in Panvel Taluka.
On Wednesday night, the 27-year-old complainant, his wife and four children were sleeping on the footpath of Panvel railway station. On Thursday at around 6am when they woke up, they realised that their youngest child was missing. The father of the girl approached the Panvel railway police and registered a missing person’s complaint.
“Meanwhile Taloja police received a tip off about the abductor and a suspicious mobile number of the accused that they passed on to Panvel Taluka police. Panvel Taluka police then worked on the case and traced the accused within 12 hours of the abduction,” Vivek Pansare, Deputy Commissioner of Police, said.
During the technical investigation of the case, the police traced the location to Katkaripada and found that the number belonged to the husband of the accused. “The husband told us that his wife was not on good terms with him and was staying with her sister at Bhingarwadi in Panvel Taluka. Our team went to Bhingarwadi and rescued the child and arrested the woman on Thursday evening,” Ravindra Daundkar, senior police inspector from Panvel Taluka police station, said.
The woman told the police that when she saw the child, there was nobody around her and hence she took her. “There was no footage from the railway. If the child was found alone on the footpath, as claimed by the accused, even then she should not have taken the child with her and should have handed her over to the police. The real intention of the accused was not clear yet. We are verifying her background,” Daundkar added.