Transperson, man held for kidnapping infant
Police said they rescued the newborn boy from the two who sought to pass the child off as their own
GHAZIABAD: The police on Sunday arrested a 26-year-old man and a 25-year-old transperson and rescued a newborn boy they allegedly kidnapped from the Muradnagar community health centre (CHC) on Saturday morning.
Police identified the man as Prince Kumar from Hapur, and the transperson as Vijay from Muradnagar. According to police, both were in a relationship and stayed in Hapur’s Badnoli.
Superintendent of police (rural) Iraj Raja said that the suspects wanted to hide the fact that Vijay was a transperson and make their relationship “more acceptable” to the society they lived. To do that, the two decided to steal a newborn to show that the transperson had conceived a child, said Raja.
“They then zeroed in on the CHC where they conducted a recce for several days. After familiarising themselves with the facility, they entered the gencue eral ward at around 4am on Saturday and picked up a child at random and fled,” said Raja.
When the news broke of a child going missing from the centre, people in the area blocked the Delhi-meerut Road for hours on Saturday and pressure mounted on police to res
the child.
Police said the family of kidnapped infant, who was born on August 25, was from Surana village. The child’s mother and grandmother were sleeping in the same ward but did not notice the child missing till much later. The Muradnagar police had registered a case under the Indian Penal Code’s Section 363 (kidnapping).
Police said CCTV footage from the hospital had little to offer in terms of identifying the suspects and another surveillance camera from a nearby lane gave them clues about the two.
A local shopkeeper recognised the suspect transgender from the footage as someone who had bought a few items from him over the last few days, said police.
“Our teams took help of a few groups of transgenders in establishing the identity of the suspect seen in the camera footage,” the SP added.
Meanwhile, the two suspects had managed to reach their home in Hapur and police later found that the duo told the people living in the area that they had become parents to a baby boy and even distributed sweets to celebrate.
“We engaged four police teams to search for the child. We managed to track the two suspects on Saturday late night near the Upper Ganga Canal. We rescued the child and immediately handed him over to his mother. She was in tears to see him back. We are also trying to find out if the two suspects are involved in any human trafficking case,” the SP said.
Ghaziabad chief medical officer Dr Bhavtosh Shankhdhar said that he has directed CCTV cameras be installed at all the health care facilities. “After the incident at Muradnagar, I have directed all the health care facilities to install cameras and make sure they are functioning properly every fortnight,” he said.
The two were produced before a court that sent them to judicial custody, said police.
PROTESTS BROKE OUT ON THE DELHI-MEERUT RD ON SATURDAY AFTER THE KIDNAPPING CAME TO LIGHT