Mumbai Crime: ‘Cops are trying to intimidate woman who lost child in taxi’

The spot where the child was allegedly thrown out and her mother jumped out from the car

The Mandovi police have registered a murder and molestation case after a tribal woman alleged that she was touched inappropriately by co-passengers and the driver of a private four-wheeler that she had boarded at Pelhar, Nalasopara East, to travel with her 10-month-old daughter to Manor on Saturday morning. She had told police her child was thrown out of the moving vehicle and she had jumped out after her. The girl died in hospital.

Considering the sensitivity of the matter, the case has been transferred to the Crime Branch and the veracity of the woman's allegation is being ascertained as the cops said the incident took place barely within two kilometres from the place she boarded the car to go to Manor on the highway.

The arrested driver. Pics/Hanif Patel

In her statement to police, the 19-year-old woman said that she jumped out of the running vehicle after her child was thrown out of it on the highway. Police said that a patrol vehicle of Highway Safety was just behind the car in which the woman was travelling with her toddler, who later succumbed to injuries.

Also read: Mumbai: Cab driver, passengers killed my child, says woman

‘She wanted to call her husband'

The woman is a native of a village in Wada taluka and after marriage she started to live with her husband in a rented shelter in Nalasopara. Her brother-in-law said, "She boarded the car on the highway to go to Manor where my brother (her husband) had been waiting to go to the village. Since she did not have a mobile phone with her, she asked the driver to make a call to her husband. I have been told by her that on the pretext of giving her the mobile phone, the driver touched her inappropriately, and when she resisted, one of the co-passengers in the car snatched her baby and threw her out of the running car. Subsequently, she jumped out of the running car. The 10-month-old baby is no more."

The woman had being staying with her husband and child at Nalasopara

The alleged incident took place around 11:30am on Saturday. According to ACP Ramchandra Deshmukh, the officials at Highway Safety Patrol rushed the baby and the injured woman to a nearby hospital where the toddler was declared dead. Later, the woman was taken to a civic-run hospital in Nalasopara for further treatment, and her husband was informed about the alleged incident.

"At the hospital, police officers had been pressuring her to change her statement. The cops told her that if the statement is not changed, she will be booked in a case and her husband and parents will be arrested. She was completely inconsolable after losing her baby girl but the cops had been scolding her at the hospital in Nalasopara," said her brother-in-law.

The child who died. The private car they were in with the other passengers Pics/Hanif Patel

The in-charge of Mandovi police Praful Wagh, allegedly took around 12 hours to register the FIR, though the woman had been consistent in alleging that she was molested and her baby was killed by her molesters in the moving vehicle.

A source in the Mira Bhayandar Vasai Virar (MBVV) police told mid-day that the driver of the car did not try to escape after the incident. After the FIR was registered under section 302 (murder) and 354 (molestation) of the IPC, the driver was placed under arrest.

On Sunday morning, the Commissioner of MBVV police Sadanand Date arrived at Mandovi police station to take stock of the situation. All the senior officers including the additional commissioner of police Shrikant Pathak, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Avinash Ambure and crime branch unit head inspectors Pramod Badakh and Sahuraj Ranaware made a beeline for the police station, where the family members of the child were transported in the police vehicle from their village in Wada.

Commissioner Date said that the matter is highly sensitive and the allegations are serious in nature. "Hence, the case has been handed over to the Crime Branch for thorough investigation." mid-day got a hint from a police officer at Mandovi police station that the woman and her husband had a quarrel over some issues. "It was the reason, her husband had been going to his village in Wada and the wife decided to go later with her baby to the village," said an officer.

However, the brother-in-law of the woman told mid-day, "My brother works in a private company and lives in Nalasopara. He has to spend a lot of money in transportation and it was the reason he was on the way to the village to bring his motorcycle. But since his wife was all alone with the baby at home, she later decided to go to the village for which she boarded the car. The car has a private number plate and it was not a cab."

"It is premature to comment on anything right now, we are working on all the possible aspects to bring out the truth," said a crime branch officer.

Search is on for co-passengers

The crime branch sleuths are searching for her co-passengers. "The driver told us that they were passengers but the car has a private number plate with the registration of Gujarat. The driver is a resident of Vashi," said an officer. On Saturday night, the woman had told mid-day at the hospital that when she had been waiting at the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway, a packed vehicle had stopped near her but she did not board that cab.

"This car was just behind that cab and the driver stopped to ask where I wanted to go. When I told the driver to drop me at Manor, he asked me to get in and then they started molesting me. One of the co-passengers threw my baby out of the running vehicle," she told mid-day.

Date said, "The veracity of her allegations is being investigated as the woman boarded the vehicle at Pelhar and the alleged incident took place after she travelled hardly two kilometres. So all the CCTV footage is being taken and statements of possible eye-witnesses being recorded."

At the time of going to press, the statements of three personnel of the Highway Safety Patrol were being recorded at Mandovi police station on Sunday. "We are yet to ascertain how the child came out of the moving car, whether the toddler was thrown out by her co-passengers, the baby accidentally slipped from the grip of her mother or the mother herself threw her out due to some reason. We are also checking if the parents of the baby had fought over some issues and so she was travelling separately with her 10-month old daughter. We have to check all the possibilities. The child must be on the lap of her mother," a crime branch officer told mid-day.

"There are some missing dots in the sequence which we have to find out. We have to handle the case with extra care as the woman has lost her child and is absolutely inconsolable. Whenever we try to quiz her to reach a conclusion, she breaks out into tears and we are back to square one," said the officer.

"If needed, we will recreate the crime scene," added the officer.

Her brother-in-law told mid-day that after the post-mortem, "the baby's final rites were conducted at our village in the wee hours of Sunday."

Dec 10
Day the incident allegedly took place