Mumbai:
Constable Dilwar Lal, whose sharp detection skills led to the rescue of the three-year-old girl who was kidnapped from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) station last month, had seen the CCTV footage of the abduction on television just two hours prior to identifying the accused, Raju Kallu Gaur.
"Before leaving for duty, I watched the news at about 9 am, and saw the story about the CST girl's kidnap, showing a man with a limp walking away with the girl. At about 11 am, I saw Gaur limping with a girl in tow. I realised he is the same person, I'd seen on TV."
Lal had first spotted him at a bus stop near Haridwar railway station, and when the accused was initially questioned, Gaur told Lal that the girl was his daughter. "He had trained her to call him papa. When I recognised him and enquired about the girl, he told me her mother was dead, and said he was returning to his house," said Lal, speaking to MiD DAY from Haridwar.
Pankaj Giri, another constable who was with Lal, said, "Initially when he saw us, he looked scared and tried to mislead us. When we interrogated him, he confessed to having kidnapped her from CST while her parents were sleeping. He wanted her to help him beg, as he was disabled."
Speaking to MiD DAY, Station House Officer Devendra Nabial of the Haridwar GRP said, "As a boy, Gaur was a beggar but his income had been affected as he grew older. He devised the scheme of kidnapping the girl to use her as bait and leverage sympathy. After she grew up, he planned to sell her into prostitution."
The child was brought back from Haridwar by a GRP team on Wednesday, and after completion of her medical examination, was handed over to her parents on Saturday. Fortunately, she had not been physically harmed.
Laxman Pawar, the girl's father said, "We are returning to Solapur and I will never come to Mumbai again in my lifetime. I will earn and live there, as I can't imagine coming here again. I got my daughter back only because of the police and the media."
The parents first saw their daughter on their neighbour's television, as they do not possess one. Shortly thereafter, the police told them that their daughter had been found.
The girl's mother, Pushpabai said, "As soon as she came to me, she asked me where her brother Ganesh was. We are happy to see our daughter after a month of struggle and suffering. My husband always believed that she would be found some day."
On asking what type of punishment should be given to Raju, Laxman said it was up to the police to decide. However, his wife interjected, saying, "He must get at least 10 years jail."