32-year-old woman stages kidnapping of her own daughter

NEW DELHI: A woman faked the kidnapping of her two-year-old daughter so that she would not have to give custody of the child to her former husband.

NEW DELHI: A woman faked the kidnapping of her two-year-old daughter so that she would not have to give custody of the child to her former husband.

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On August 26, the 32-year-old woman called the police and said her daughter was kidnapped from the Friday market in Swaroop Nagar.

A case of kidnapping was registered and police swung into action to trace the ‘missing’ girl.

Messages were flashed throughout India , a ‘Hue and Cry notice’ was pasted at prominent places and information was sent to the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB ), Doordarshan, the CRO and the CBI.

When police asked for a photograph of the child, the mother said she did not have one. The police looked for the girl near the market, in sewage drains and in neighbouring areas.

When the police accessed CCTV footage of the area, they could not spot child in the recording. But the woman was seen wandering around.

“It was observed that the woman was alone while she was going to the market and the girl was not with her. The family did not provide any photograph of her, making the police suspicious. When investigators told her how was she seen wandering alone in the market, she changed her statement,” deputy commissioner of police (northwest) Vijay Singh said.

“The next day she changed the story and told us two women kidnapped her daughter at knife-point. This strengthened our suspicion and we questioned her further. The woman changed her statement the third time. She said she found her daughter at Mukarba Chowk and wanted to withdraw the complaint,” a senior police officer said.

Later she broke down and admitted to have plotted a case of fictitious kidnapping. She feared the custody of her daughter would be given to her father.

“Her former husband had recently given an application in court, demanding custody of his daughter. The woman did not want that and she concocted the kidnapping story,” Singh said.