In a recent development on Thursday morning, the Panvel taluka police of Mumbai division arrested a 35-year-old woman who was found guilty for abducting a girl aged 2 years from the footpath of a Panvel railway station.
The arrested woman has been identified as a resident of Katkaripada in Panvel Taluka, named Shewanti Katkari. Her arrest was a result of an FIR issued by a 27-year-old complainant on Wednesday.
As per the statement of the complainant, he along with his wife and their four children were sleeping in the footpaths of the Panvel taluka railway station, as always. However, when they woke up on Thursday at 6 AM, they had noticed that their youngest child was missing from the footpath. As soon as panic lurked, the father of the missing daughter had approached the railway police division of Panvel taluka, and soon after, the police registered a case for the same.
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Reiterating about the case, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Vivek Pansare said, “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.”
As the police initiated a technical investigation on the case, they found the location of Katkaripada, as the accuser’s number was traced. The senior investigation inspector of the case from the Panvel police station said, “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.”
As a justification, the accused woman told the police that she carried away the child not with an intention of harming her but rather for her safety as when she found her, the child was all alone in the footpath.
The investigation officer further added, “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.”
The case remains stagnant for now as the police are continuously investigating the matter. The accused has been arrested; however, there remain a few formalities to be fulfilled before the Panvel taluka police can stage her as the sole guilty.
