Mumbai: A three-year-old boy who was abducted from Vashi railway station by a drunk man was reunited with his parents on Friday after a woman residing in Kalwa, on the outskirts of Mumbai, found him.
Raghu Shinde was with his mother when she went to buy a snack from a food stall outside Vashi station; they live in a nearby slum. She left her son’s hand to pay and that was when he went missing. The CCTV footage from the station showed a drunk man carrying the child and staggering on the platform. Police had sent out alerts to the public about the missing child.
The abductor had apparently abandoned the boy in Shanti Nagar, near Kalwa railway station, where the child was loitering until Nazira Khan, 30, saw him and tried to find his parents on September 8. When residents said they did not know the boy, Khan took him to the local police station but the police told her to keep the boy until someone came to look for him.
Khan took care of the boy, who played with her daughters and son when she went to work and learnt about his abduction only when she watched TV and a bulletin on a Marathi news channel about the missing child. She immediately informed the Vashi police station, who told his parents that their child was safe.
Though this is a happy ending, questions are being raised about why the Kalwa police asked Khan to take care of the child. More importantly, all police stations are to be informed when a child goes missing.
However, Kalwa police station senior police inspector, Mukhtar Bagwan, has claimed that Khan is a ‘police mitra’ or friend and was in touch with the officers regularly. It was safe to leave the boy in her custody, he said.
