Midnight abduction of six-month-old baby lands two women behind bars
Awoman living by seeking alms was shell-shocked when she woke up to ¢nd her six-month-old baby girl missing. It was her third child.
She had been sleeping on the platform on West Masi Street. After noticing the baby missing, she knocked at the Thideer Nagar police station in the early hours of Wednesday. Initially, the police were clueless as the woman could not give any details. But, as the enquiry was on, the woman’s threeyear-old daughter recalled about two ‘akkas’ who had been speaking to her mother.
“We got to know that only after their conversation with the mother, the baby had gone missing,” a police ocer said. The police waited for the day break and watched video footage of the scene of crime which was recorded by closed circuit television camera installed by a commercial establishment.
The footage showed one of the women stealthily taking away the infant while the mother was fast asleep.
The police started following the movement of the accused with the video footage from a series of CCTVs in the city. Several teams fanned out on the four directions after con¢rming the movement of the women with the video footage found at every spot.
Slowly,
The police started following movement of the accused with the video footage from a series of CCTVs in the city
as the teams were proceeding towards Karupatti. In between, one of the CCTVs helped the police to identify the vehicle through which they traced the woman at Karuppatti.
She was identi¢ed as Maheswari, 30, wife of Anbalagan. During interrogation, she spilled the beans that along with her sisterin-law, G. Senthamarai, 42, she had abducted the infant.
The women had seen the mother of three seeking alms and had planned the abduction. During their conversation, they also knew certain dark truths about the mother and then abducted the infant. “They claim that they were moved by the plight of the mother of three children and wanted to help her. But their act of abducting the child at night and that too without the knowledge of the mother is a crime,” Commissioner of Police J. Loganathan said.
The police were yet to ascertain the actual motive of the women. “We do not know whether they wanted to bring up the infant or any other criminal intention,” he added.
The women have been arrested for abduction.
The swift action by the special teams ended up successfully in solving the child missing case within 12 hours of getting reported.