Woman abandons newborn baby on local train in Navi Mumbai

A woman abandoned her 15-day-old baby as she handed over the child to two fellow passengers on a local train in Navi Mumbai and made them alight midway while she travelled ahead, police said on Wednesday.

The incident occurred on Monday afternoon, an official said, adding that efforts were on to trace her.

The woman was sitting near the door in the suburban train on the harbour line. She asked two other female passengers to help her to alight as she had an infant in one hand and baggage in another.

The passengers, who were supposed to alight at Juinagar railway station, decided to help the woman by continuing their journey till the next Seawoods station with her, the official said.

At Seawoods station, the two female passengers alighted first and the woman handed over the baby to them.

But instead of getting down from the train, the woman waited at its door, pretending to collect the baggage as the train started, the official said.

The two passengers holding the baby initially thought the woman mistakenly did not alight and would come back from the next station by a train in the opposite direction, but she did not return, he said.

Both the passengers then went to police with the baby and narrated the incident. They were taken to the Vashi railway police who launched a search for the woman.

A case was subsequently registered against the woman under section 93 (exposure and abandonment of a child under 12 years of age) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, BNS, the official said.

While examining the CCTV footage at various stations, the police found the woman alighted at Khandeshwar railway station, located five stations ahead of Seawoods, he said, adding that efforts were on to trace her. Last week, Panvel Town police in Navi Mumbai found a three-day-old child abandoned in a basket on a road in Takka Colony with a note written by her parents, that they cannot raise the baby due to their poor financial condition.

The Navi Mumbai police's crime branch tracked down and detained the infant's father, a resident of Bhiwandi in Thane, within 24 hours, an official earlier said.

Investigations suggested the baby was born to an unwed mother, and the parents decided to leave her at an orphanage in Panvel, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)