New Delhi:
The Delhi Police has finally managed to arrest Rajkumar, the prime suspect in the Baby Falak case. The two-year-old girl, meanwhile, continues to remain critical. The team of doctors attending to her at Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said today that she is back on back on ventilator support.
Falak was brought to AIIMS on January 18 in a battered and bruised state by a teenager, who told her interrogators later that she got the baby from Rajkumar. The teenager had reportedly eloped with him last year. She has been sent to a juvenile home. She had reportedly also alleged that she was sexually abused by Rajkumar.
Rajkumar, a taxi driver, was arrested from New Delhi railway station yesterday. With his arrest, the Delhi Police hopes to solve the mystery about how, when and where Falak was tortured.
Rajkumar has reportedly told the police that in October last year, he met a man named Manoj who gave him the child. "Rajkumar told us that in October last year, he met a man named Manoj. Manoj told him he needed a car to drop a child (Falak) to an orphanage. Rajkumar instead asked him to hand over the two-year-old to him," Chhaya Sharma, Deputy Commissioner of Police, South District, Delhi Police, said in a presser today. She added that Manoj's wife, a woman named Pratima, has also been arrested from Patna in connection with the case. She is also being brought to Delhi for investigation.
Falak, named for the sky by AIIMS staff, was admitted to the trauma unit of the hospital with a fractured skull, multiple fractures in arms, burns from a hot clothes iron and human bites all over her face. As the two-year-old Baby Falak continues to battle for survival, the Delhi Police is trying to complete her family portrait. According to them, a 22-year-old woman named Munni is Falak's mother. She was traced to Rajasthan and brought to Delhi on February 6. A day later, Falak's elder sister, Sanobar, was found in Bihar and brought to Delhi. Falak's five-year-old brother still remains missing.
While Munni was given Sanobar's custody after she identified her, she is yet to see Falak in hospital. Munni has reportedly approached the Child Welfare Committee and has said she would like to look after Baby Falak. But sources in the police say they will run DNA tests to confirm Munni's relationship with Falak before letting her visit the baby. Munni is currently staying at a nari niketan or shelter for women in Delhi. She is reportedly not aware that her youngest child was subjected to severe physical abuse by those who looked after her - a long line of adults who she knew only loosely.
According to the police, Munni is being "treated as a victim and not an accused." In Rajasthan, Munni lived with her second husband, whom she married months ago. Originally from Bihar, she was abandoned by her first husband after they had three children. She was promised a job in Delhi by an acquaintance so she moved to the capital with her three children. Two women named Lakshmi and Kanta tried to persuade her into prostitution. When she refused, they encouraged her to marry a man from Rajasthan, promising that he would look after her children eventually. The man allegedly paid Rs. two lakh to the women for arranging his marriage. Munni moved to Rajasthan, leaving her children behind. Lakshmi and Kanta promised her that her second husband would eventually accept her sons and daughter.
Lakshmi then deposited Sanobar in Bihar with a relative. Falak was handed from one adult to another, till she ended up with the teen who brought her to Delhi's AIIMS hospital.