A 10-year-old boy, who was kidnapped from a government hospital in 2007 by a childless couple, was reunited with his biological parents on Monday.
A decision about his parentage, however, will depend on legal proceedings such as a DNA test.
The reunion came after four months of effort from the East Delhi district police, who were approached by the boy’s biological parents — Afsar and Fareeda. According to them, their son had been seen in Krishna Nagar. Armed only with the boy’s photo from when he was one-and-a-half years old, the police searched hundreds of houses in the area before identifying the boy at a MCD-run school in Old Seelampur.
Accused arrested
The foster parents — Mohd. Shamina and Nargis — have been arrested and charged with kidnapping and confinement. DCP (East) Rishi Pal said that though the couple denied the charges initially, they later confessed to kidnapping the boy whom they renamed as Sameer.
The boy, who had originally been named Shahd, lived with his family in North-West Delhi’s Jahangirpuri before he was kidnapped in 2007.
It was in November 2007 that Fareeda had gone to Babu Jagjivan Ram Hospital as she was expecting her second child.
As she stood in a queue, Shahd dozed off on a bench nearby. Leaving the boy outside, the woman went into the doctor’s room only to find the boy missing when she came out.
Though the police failed to trace the child back then, Afsar and Fareeda didn’t give up. In May, a relative told them about seeing a boy with features similar to Shahd’s in Krishna Nagar.
The couple then informed the Krishna Nagar police station, after which the DCP constituted a special team that visited the house where the boy was last seen. However, it turned out that the family had vacated the rented accommodation a month earlier.
Boy traced to school
Thereafter, a door-to-door visit was taken up. When this yielded no results, the police shifted focus to government schools in the area.
Ultimately on Monday, a boy with features similar to the kidnapped child was traced to a MCD school in Old Seelampur. Afsar and Fareeda were called to the school to identify the boy.
Finding the kidnappers was easy after this. The foster parents, however, insisted that the boy was their biological child.
“When presented with their previous neighbours’ statements about how the one-and-a-half year old child had suddenly become a member of their family around 10 years ago, the accused claimed that the child was delivered in their native village. But they confessed finally,” said the DCP.
