Mumbai cop pays from own pocket to save 5-year-old abused child

Constable Atul Ahire

A traffic constable from Gamdevi went beyond the call of duty on Saturday, ensuring a sexually assaulted and unconscious five-year-old girl got medical help immediately.

On Saturday evening, constable Atul Ahire found a small crowd looking at something on the ground outside a food outlet near Mahalaxmi temple. When he went to find out what the matter was, he saw a child lying unconscious on the footpath. Ahire asked the people around who the child was, but no one seemed to know. He then checked the girl's pulse and found she was alive. "He picked up the child and rushed her to a doctor's clinic across the road," said a police officer. "The doctor, after examining the child, told Ahire that she had been sexually assaulted and possibly poisoned and needed to be taken to a hospital," the officer added.

Ahire immediately took the child to Breach Candy Hospital, which was the closest. "When the hospital demanded a security deposit, Ahire gave them his credit card and requested them to begin treatment," said a source. The girl was admitted to the ICU.

The Gamdevi cops were then informed, who checked the bag the child had been carrying. "Inside, we found an ID card of a school, and through the school we contacted the girl's parents," said another officer. The parents were called to the police station and they said their daughter had been abducted the same morning.

CCTV footage of the spot where the child was found shows her with a woman, who later abandoned her after she fainted. "We are trying to trace the woman and will find her soon," said Pravin Padwal, additional commissioner (south region). A case has filed at Gamdevi police station against unknown persons.

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