Police turn WhatsApp wiz to find missing girl in 4 hours flat

Sabina with her mother at the Wadala police station

WhatsApp groups can be annoying, but if used properly, they can be of great help too. The Wadala police cleverly used several of such groups to find a three-and-a-half-year-old girl who had gone missing from Deenbandhu Nagar a few days ago.

Officers circulated her photo on groups of housing societies, as well as sent it to the Wadala TT police, asking them to spread it further. Within four hours, a resident found the girl near Sangam Nagar and took her to the police.

A frantic search
On May 15 around 1.45 pm, Mohammad Sadik Khan, 30, came to Wadala police station and told officers that his daughter Sabina had been missing since 10 am, while she was playing near the house in Deenbandhu Nagar.

DCP (Port Zone) Dr Rashmi Karandikar, who was on a visit to the police station, took down the information and asked senior inspector Parshuram Karyakarte to form teams to trace the girl.

"One team was sent to Deenbandhu Nagar to question hawkers and shopkeepers about Sabina. None of them had seen the girl," said Karyakarte. "Another team was going through CCTV footage, in which she was spotted. We took a grab of her face and circulated it on various WhatsApp groups, besides sending it to the Wadala TT police." Another officer said, "We have WhatsApp groups of different housing societies, where we relayed the information, and also put our 'eyes and ears' to work. One team was exclusively checking lanes and parked vehicles across the jurisdiction. We were getting anxious with every passing minute; finding the girl was necessary, as it was possible she could fall in the wrong hands."

Found at last!
Around 5 pm, the Wadala police got information that two residents of Sangam Nagar had brought a girl matching Sabina's description to the area's police chowky. It turned out that the girl, who was visiting a relative in Wadala with her parents, had got lost while playing as she didn't know the area.

"We sent the parents to Sangam Nagar police chowky, which falls under the Wadala TT police; it was Sabina," said Karyakarte. The duo who found her were Sandip Yadav, 21, and Ayaz Ahmed Shaikh, 24. They said they saw her picture on WhatsApp and brought her to police.

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