26-yr-old in Delhi abandons her kids to marry boyfriend

The four-year-old boy and her sister, aged two, were found on Monday evening in Chandni Chowk where a woman was looking after them after she found the two kids at a bus stop

Delhi Police have recovered two siblings who were allegedly abandoned by their 26-year-old mother a week ago to marry her partner, officers said on Tuesday.

The siblings were reported missing on April 20 after neighbours complained of a foul smell emanating from their Burari house. (HT Photo)

The four-year-old boy and her sister, aged two, were found on Monday evening in Chandni Chowk where a woman was looking after them after she found the two kids at a bus stop near Kashmere Gate on April 18, police said.

Police said they have found no evidence so far regarding the involvement of the woman’s partner in the matter.

The siblings were reported to be missing on April 20 after the woman’s neighbours in north Delhi’s Burari called the police to complain about a foul smell emanating from her house. According to the neighbours, they had not seen the children with their mother for days, police said.

While the police did not find anything suspicious at the house, which officers said was stinking due to lack of cleanliness, the woman during her interrogation about the whereabouts of her children first told them that she had abandoned them at an unknown location, but later changed her statement, saying that she had killed them.

“Thereafter, the woman took the children to a bus stop nearby, where she abandoned them,” the SHO said.

At the bus stop, another woman, who works at a home for children, saw the mother abandoning the children. “She called out to the mother from behind, but was ignored,” said Sagar Singh Kalsi, deputy commissioner of police (north).

The other woman, a mother of two, then took the children to her home at Sita Ram Bazar in Chandni Chowk.

While police during its ongoing investigation found on April 24 that the children were taken in by the woman, her family had also been trying to find out about the children’s parents. “When they heard that the boy mentioned that his home was in Burari, they decided to take the children to Burari police station,” said the ACP.

The children were finally recovered on Monday evening. They were sent to an observation home on Tuesday, the officer said.

Meanwhile, police said that they will explore the legal actions to be taken in the case. Earlier, a case of kidnapping was lodged when the children were reported to be missing complaint, police said. Their mother was under counselling and medical examination, they added.

In their investigation, police found out that the woman was sentenced to prison in 2017 for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in her father’s death. “She was in the prison two years for two years before being released on bail two years later,” said Alka Azad, assistant commissioner of police (Timarpur).

According to the police, the woman’s husband had left her two years ago. Since then, she had been living in Burari with her two children at a home, which belonged to her parents. Around the same time, she got involved with a 28-year-old man, who lived nearby, who would often stay in the same house, but allegedly refused to marry her as she had children, said police.

The children will be produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) on Wednesday, the ACP said.