A 25-year-old woman was arrested in south-east Delhi for allegedly kidnapping a two-month-old infant to sacrifice him to bring her dead father to life, the police said on Saturday. The child has been rescued.
The accused, identified as Shweta, a resident of Kotla Mubarakpur, has been arrested, the police said, adding that she lives with her mother. The accused has been involved in previous cases of robbery and burglary.
The police received a call at the Amar Colony police station on Thursday at 4 p.m. that a two-month-old baby boy was kidnapped by an unknown woman from the Garhi area. An FIR was registered and investigation initiated.
‘NGO worker’
The child’s 35-year-old mother said the kidnapper met her at Safdarjung Hospital and had introduced herself as being associated with an NGO, JachchaBachcha Care. “The woman had promised to provide us with free medicines and consultation for both – my child and myself,” the mother said.
“The woman met me on November 1. She told me that she can get me medicines for free. When I refused, she kept following me,” the mother said.
Took baby for outing
”She even followed me on the pretext of examining my child’s development. On Wednesday [November 9], she came to our house at Mamraj Mohalla in Garhi for a check-up. On Thursday too, she came to my place and induced me to hand over the child for an outing,” the mother said.
According to the mother, Shweta took their Aadhar card details and phone numbers. “She told us her name was Asha and she had been working with the NGO for a while now. She did not look suspicious. Nobody could figure out that she was deceiving us,” the mother said.
“On Thursday, the mother asked her 21-year-old niece to accompany Shweta while she took the infant out. The accused took the infant and Ritu in her car,” the police said, adding that she then offered Ritu a cold drink after which she fell unconscious.
An officer said the kidnapper then dumped Ritu in Ghaziabad. “When she gained consciousness, she informed her family that the child had been kidnapped.”
After CCTV footage analysis, the kidnapper’s vehicle registration number was traced and her address details were revealed, the police said.
Following a tip-off that Shweta would visit a Arya Samaj Mandir in Kotla Mubarakpur, she was arrested on Friday.
During interrogation, Shweta revealed that her father had died in October. During his last rites in Haridwar, Shweta was informed that sacrifice of an infant of the same gender could bring her father back to life, an officer said. “To execute this, she looked for infant boys in the area. She went to the hospital and introduced herself as an NGO worker,” the officer added.
Was going to leave for Haridwar
Shweta was supposed to take the infant to Haridwar in the next few days to perform black magic and some other sacrificial rituals, the officer said.
Shweta has studied till Class XI and is currently unemployed. Her brother was declared as a bad character due to his criminal record.
The infant’s family migrated from Bihar to Delhi in 2021. The family lives in rented accommodation and is undergoing financial crunch. The infant’s father works in a textile firm and the mother worked as a cook. Both the parents manage their household with a combined income of ₹19,000.
