Title - CST abduction: Beggar women on police radar

The government railway police (GRP) suspect that the 10-month-old boy who was allegedly abducted from the general hall at CST by an unidentified woman on Wednesday is being used to beg for alms.BN Sirsat, deputy commissioner of police, Mumbai GRP, says a special police squad comprising 30 personnel, including three inspectors, two assistant inspectors and two sub-inspectors, were formed on Thursday to trace the woman who had allegedly lifted the infant lying beside his sleeping paternal grandmother at CST.“The squad will keep a tab on women with infants begging at important traffic junctions in the city such as ones at Haji Ali, Mahim and Nagpada as well as the Amar Mahal junction at Chembur,” explains Sirsat. He adds that in addition to CST, the squad will concentrate on important railway termini like Dadar, Mumbai Central and Bandra in search of the suspected kidnapper. The police team combed slum colonies at Dharavi, Matunga, Antop Hill and Ambernath in Thane district on Thursday in their efforts to trace the woman, said Sirsat.The baby, Sagar alias Babu, was under the care of his grandmother, Ranjana Ramchandra Mahat, a 50-year-old labourer from Vasai, who decided to turn in for the night on October 2 at the general hall at CST while waiting to catch a train to Uttar Pradesh the next day to get to her hometown in Nepal. When Mahat woke up around 3.45am, she found Sagar, whom she had laid beside her, and an unidentified woman who was sleeping next to him missing. After conducting a search on her own on the premises, she approached the GRP station at CST.

The police, too, fanned out on the station in search of the infant before registering a case of abduction.

Mahat recalled to the police that the suspected kidnapper, aged between 28 and 32, was wearing a red sari and blouse, is 5’ 2” tall, has a medium build and has a dark complexion. She speaks Marathi and Hindi.