4-yr-old kidnapped from Palghar, rescued in Mumbai

A four-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped in the district by a woman, who later abandoned the child in the neighbouring Mumbai, a police official said today.

The girl was rescued by the Mumbai police and reunited with her parents, he said.

The 22-year-old woman kidnapped the girl from her school at Virar in Palghar on March 31, Arnala Sagri police station's inspector Keshav Naik said.

She then abandoned the girl in Mumbai where a policeman spotted the child crying and wandering alone on a street in the Mahalakshmi area.

The policeman took the girl to the Gaondevi police station in Mumbai where the security personnel made enquiries to search for her parents, Naik said.

The police managed to reunite the child with her parents yesterday, he said.

During the probe, which was later transferred to the Arnala Sagri police, it was found that the woman had kidnapped the girl to take revenge from the child's father, with whom she was in a relationship, Naik said.

The woman, a resident of Virar, was arrested yesterday and booked under relevant sections, he added.

In a similar incident, a five-year-old girl was kidnapped from outside her house in Nallasopara area of Palghar on March 24.

The child was later found dead in the ladies' toilet of Navsari railway station in Gujarat, over 250 km from Mumbai.

On March 28, the police had arrested a 22-year-old woman and claimed to have solved the killing of the girl.

The accused, also a resident of Nallasopara, was reportedly in a relationship with the victim's father, an autorickshaw driver, and wanted to marry him. However, he was dilly-dallying on marriage and this enraged her, the police had said.

To teach him a lesson, the woman had kidnapped and killed his daughter, they added.