Abducted one month-old baby girl rescued within five hours

A childless woman, along with her sister, allegedly abducted a one-month-old girl from a hospital in east Delhi, but swift action by the police led to their arrest and recovery of the baby within five hours.

Yesterday, the police were informed that a baby girl had been taken away from the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital in Kalyanpuri by unidentified women, police said today.

The girl's father said that while he was waiting in a queue, his wife, who was sitting on the steps, was befriended by a woman. She handed over the baby to the woman when she went to the washroom, they said.

When she came back, the baby and the woman were nowhere to be found.

Several teams were formed to trace the baby and police personnel were deployed at all entry and exit points of the hospital with the directions to check all the people and vehicles entering or leaving the premises.

A dedicated police team was assigned to check CCTV footage.

After intensive analysis of the footage, two suspicious women were spotted moving towards one of the exits. They were seen taking an autorickshaw, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Pankaj Kumar Singh.

All auto-drivers were questioned about them and some were able to identify a local driver, Azad, who had left with the two women and a baby.

He was contacted by the staff and he led the police team to Khoda Colony, Ghaziabad, where he had dropped the two women, said the officer. The women were found along with the baby.

They were identified as Poonam, 22, and Ruchi, 19. During interrogation, they said that they were sisters and belonged to Etawa in Uttar Pradesh.

Poonam said she could not have a child even after four years of marriage. They had gone to the LBS Hospital for a check-up where they found the woman and her baby. They befriended her and started playing with the child.

The mother, who was exhausted after waiting at the hospital from morning for her child's check up, trusted them and handed over the infant to them when she went to the washroom, he added. As soon as she left, they fled with the baby and went home.

They had plans to flee to Etawa with the baby girl but were nabbed.