Mumbai: A 5-day-old baby boy was rescued and reunited with his parents from the hands of the kidnapper by the Agripada police. The matter became known when a doctor at VN Desai Hospital in Vakola saw a tag around the baby and using the presence of mind helped the police in arresting the accused. The Agripada police said after kidnapping the baby boy the accused Hazel Corriea brought him to the VN Desai Hospital at 11pm on Friday. The baby was crying continuously. Mr. A.R. Kadam, Senior Police Inspector, Vakola police said when the hospital staff made enquiries to the woman she said that the baby belongs to her. However, Dr. Priyanka B. Varwatte, at the VN Desai Hospital who was on night duty identified a tag tied on the baby’s wrist and suspected foul play. She then told Mr. Datta Gaikwad, a Police Constable on duty at the hospital, to keep an eye on the woman. On conducting the investigation, the police constable found that the woman at the hospital with the baby resembled the accused who was caught on CCTV camera in the act of kidnapping a baby from ward no. 7 at Nair Hospital at 5.30 p.m. on Thursday. The CCTV footage of the accused had been circulated on several WhatsApp groups of police personnel. Even on news channels, the footage was displayed during the day. The police constable Mr. Gaikwad who was on duty at the hospital, on confirming the suspicion about the woman passed on the details to the Agripada police and informed his senior officer at the Vakola police station. On receiving the information, the Agripada police sent a police team to the hospital and apprehended the accused, Ms. Corriea at 12.30 am, and handed the baby over to his parents. On interrogating the accused woman, she told the police that she was unable to conceive and wanted a child of her own, Mr. K. Khandelwal, Police Inspector at the Agripada police station, said. She was identified as Ms. Hazel Corriea, 37 a resident of Nale Kondebhat in Nallasoparam. He also told that the woman said that she told the people in her locality that she was pregnant. The baby was kidnapped to support her claims but a suspicion arises on whether she is telling the whole truth. The sequence of events need to be put together from 5.30 p.m. on Thursday when she left Nair Hospital to 11 p.m. on Friday when she reached VN Desai Hospital. During investigation at Nair Hospital, the patients and attendants at Ward No.7 recognized the woman in the CCTV footage, the police said. An attendant at the hospital said, “We saw her talking to a lot of people in the ward and thought she was a relative of one of the patients.” Mr. Vijaysingh Bagal, Police Inspector at the Agripada police station, said that a case was filed against Ms. Hazel Corriea on charges of kidnapping under the Indian Penal Code. ]]>
