A seven-year-old girl who went missing from her residence in Kalwa was traced and reunited with her family within 12 hours of the complaint being registered on Friday. In a heart-warming gesture, the police also bought a new dress for the girl before sending her home with her family.
The girl, Vaishnavi Sangvekar, lives with her mother and elder sister, the Kalwa police said. On Thursday afternoon, she went missing while her mother was at work and her sister was asleep. Her mother, after returning home, searched for her at all possible places and subsequently approached the police early on Friday.
In keeping with the procedure for missing minors, the police registered a case of kidnapping against unknown persons and initiated investigations. “The family stays close to the railway station and we started scouring CCTV footage of the station. When that did not yield any clues, we expanded our search and obtained footage of all stations on the Central line,” senior police inspector Shekhar Bagde, Kalwa police station, said.
Spotted on platform
After going through footage from over 40 cameras at various railway stations, the police hit pay dirt in the footage of Kurla railway station.
“We saw a girl who looked a lot like Vaishnavi crying incessantly on a platform, and some women consoling her and leading her away. We rushed a team to the station and made inquiries with the Kurla railway police. We were informed that the women who found Vaishnavi had brought her to the police station. As she was unable to tell the police her address or any other information, the police, in keeping with the law, had handed her over to the Children’s Home in Mankhurd,” Mr. Bagde said.
The Kalwa police went to the Children’s Home, took Vaishnavi into custody, and handed her over to her mother on Friday afternoon.
Wanted new dress
The police said that Vaishnavi’s mother, who works as a domestic help in Mumbai, had promised to buy her a new dress for Deepavali after she got home on Thursday. However on Thursday afternoon, Vaishnavi got impatient while playing outside her house and decided to go look for her mother, so that they could go shopping together.
“Vaishnavi had gone to Kalwa station and boarded the first train she saw, after which she got off at Kurla and got scared. Since she had her heart set on a new dress, we bought one for her before sending her home,” Mr. Bagde said.
