Baby stolen from Pollachi rescued in 24 hrs; accused held

COIMBATORE: Within a day after an infant was kidnapped from Pollachi Government Hospital, the Coimbatore district police rescued the four-day-old girl and handed her over to parents early on Monday.

The special teams of police, claimed to have checked around 150 CCTV footage to nab Shameena (34), of Koduvayur in Palakkad in Kerala and another 14-year-old girl.

Around 5 am on Sunday, Shameena stole the baby, delivered by Dhivya Bharathi (25), wife of Yunus on June 29 at Pollachi GH. On receiving information, Coimbatore district Superintendent of Police V Badri Narayanan formed 12 special teams to arrest the culprits.

The woman, accompanied by the minor, took an auto from the hospital to Pollachi bus terminus, boarded a bus to Coimbatore and then a train to reach Palakkad in Kerala.

“As the CCTV footage of hospital was unavailable due to maintenance work, the special teams checked around 150 CCTV footages in Pollachi, Coimbatore and Palakkad, which gave crucial evidence to pin down the culprit. In fact, the CCTV images in all stations from Coimbatore to Palakkad were screened and discovered the woman to have got down at Olavakode station,” said Badri Narayanan.

After further investigations, the police picked up the accused hiding in a house at Koduvayur. Police then rescued the baby, within 22 hours of its abduction and handed it over to parents in Pollachi GH at around 4 am on Monday.

Inquiries revealed that Shameena and her husband are separated and they already have three children. “She was, however, living with another man, who wanted a child of their own. Therefore, Shameena, who had done family planning, pretended to be pregnant and abducted the infant to fake it as though born to them,” police said.

Police said the woman had earlier visited government hospitals in Palakkad and Tirupur to abduct the baby, however, she didn’t make an attempt as there were CCTVs on the hospital premises. Police produced Shameena in court and lodged her in prison, while the minor has been kept in an Observation Home.