17-year-old girl dumps baby in train, cops find infant in Hyderabad

PUNE: A 17-year-old girl led the police on a wild goose chase after dumping her nine-month-old girl in an express train and claiming that the child had been kidnapped.

The Government Railway Police (GRP), Pune, eventually traced the child to Hyderabad. Later, it emerged that the baby’s mother was actually the victim of a child marriage and sexual assault.

The incident took place on Feb 3 this year, when the girl approached the police claiming to be 20 years old. The Solapur resident raised an alarm saying someone in the train had taken away her daughter when she got down at Pune railway station to fetch milk for the child.

Senior inspector Rajendra Gaikwad of GRP, Pune railway station police station, told TOI, “After studying CCTV footage at multiple locations and recording statements that the complainant kept changing, we realized that she was misleading us. We saw that she had dumped the baby in the train and then lodged a fabricated complaint. We also realized that she was a minor girl and married, and that she wanted to dump the baby to remarry a man in Pune.”

Gaikwad said the girl belongs to a poor family; her‘husband is unemployed.

Last week, the police registered a case against the husband, in-laws and her parents under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and rape charges under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The senior inspector informed, “The minor’s parents married her off to a man in Solapur. But she was in love with a man in Pune. She conceived but decided to flee. She reached Solapur station and took a train to Pune. She did not know what to do with the baby and left her in the train, lying to co-passengers that she would fetch milk. She approached the police with her story. We registered a case of kidnapping and started investigating the case.”

Gaikwad added, “CCTV footage showed how she did not board the train. At CST, we saw a woman carry the baby and get into a cab. We tracked down the driver, who directed us to Haji Ali Dargah. In CCTV cameras there, we saw the woman purchase a chadar offering and pay using UPI. We tracked the transaction and secured the phone used for it. Then, we tracked her to Hyderabad, found the baby and got her to Pune. The baby is in a care centre, while the girl is in another facility, pending legal proceedings.”