Doctor, constable’s quick thinking saves kidnapped baby boy

Alert doctor and constable posted at hospital in Santacruz join hands to rescue child from abductor

Guardian angel: Police constal Datta Gaikwad with the rescued baby and his parents on Friday.

The presence of mind of a doctor and a constable at VN Desai Hospital in Vakola helped the police nab a 37-year-old woman who allegedly kidnapped a five-day-old boy from Nair Hospital.

The Agripada police said the accused, Hazel Corriea, reached VN Desai Hospital at 11 p.m. on Friday with a baby who was crying incessantly. “The woman claimed the baby was hers. However, Dr. Priyanka B. Varwatte, a doctor on night duty, saw a tag on the baby’s wrist and suspected foul play. She then told Datta Gaikwad, a constable on duty at the hospital, to keep an eye on the woman,” said A.R. Kadam, senior police inspector, Vakola police.

Dr. Priyanka B. Varwatte, the doctor whose presence of mind helped save the life of a newborn, being felicitated on Friday.

The constable found that the woman resembled the culprit who was caught on camera kidnapping a baby from ward no. 7 at Nair Hospital at 5.30 p.m. on Thursday. Stills of the accused from the CCTV footage had been circulated on several WhatsApp groups of police personnel. The footage was also played on news channels during the day.

Snehal S., a guard at the hospital, said, “The constable confirmed the doctor’s suspicion and alerted the Agripada police.” Mr. Gaikwad also passed on the information to his superiors at the Vakola police station. The Agripada police sent a team to the hospital and Ms. Corriea was taken into custody at 12.30 a.m. The baby was handed over to his parents.

The police said Ms. Corriea, a resident of Nale Kondebhat in Nallasopara, claimed that she was unable to conceive and wanted a child of her own. K. Khandelwal, police inspector at the Agripada police station, said, “The woman said that she told people in her locality that she was pregnant. She said she kidnapped the baby to support her claims, but we suspect she is not telling us the whole truth. We also need to piece together the sequence of events from 5.30 p.m. on Thursday when she left Nair Hospital to 11 p.m. on Friday when she reached VN Desai Hospital.”

Vijaysingh Bagal, police inspector at the Agripada police station, said that Ms. Corriea was charged with kidnapping under the Indian Penal Code. The police said that patients and attendants at ward no. 7 in Nair Hospital recognised her from the footage. An attendant said, “We saw her talking to a lot of people in the ward and thought she was a relative of one of the patients.”