Almost nine years after he was kidnapped from Babu Jagjivan Ram Hospital in Jahangirpuri area, the Delhi Police on Tuesday recovered a 10-year-old boy in East Delhi’s Krishna Nagar. Shammi (name changed), who was kidnapped when he was one-and-a-half-year-old is unable to recognise his biological parents as he was brought up by the couple who had kidnapped him and had even admitted him to an MCD school.
Police have arrested the accused — identified as Mohammed Samin and his wife Nargis — who had kidnapped the child as they did not have a child of their own. Shammi’s family lives in Bhalsawa Dairy.
According to a senior police official, on the afternoon of November 11, 2007, when Shammi’s mother Farida, who was pregnant, took him to the BBJR Hospital, she saw that his son was feeling sleepy and made him sit on a bench so that she could stand in the queue for her check-up.
“She initially kept a watch on him but after a while, when she again checked on her son, he was missing from the bench. This shocked Farida as she desperately started searching for her son,” said the official, adding, “Farida ran to her house and informed her husband Afsar, who runs a mobile shop, and both went and registered a complaint at Jahangirpuri Police Station,” said the official.
Then started their struggle for finding their son as they went from pillar to post but in vain. After few years, Shammi’s parents gave up hope and even police were unable to make any breakthrough in the case. In the meantime, Afsar and Farida gave birth to a boy and a girl, Zaid(7) and Afza(4). When asked how could she recognise her son on Tuesday, Farida said, “What’s there not to recogniseIJ He came out of my womb and a mother can never forget her children.”
Farida alleged that she saw a woman come close to her son that day to give him biscuit but did not pay much attention. “After her son went missing from the hospital, due to desperate search for my son with my pregnant belly, I accidentally fell down and suffered miscarriage,” alleged Farida.
Narrating how Shammi’s father Afsar got lead to his son’s whereabouts, police officials said, “Afsar had gone to a wedding at his village in Bareilly in May this year where he met a friend, who was from Old Seelumpur area in Delhi. Out of sudden splurge of emotion, he showed his friend the photo of his son and started crying. To his surprise, Afsar’s friend said that he might have seen a strikingly similar looking boy in the area,” said the police official.
Afsar later informed the SHO of Krishna Nagar police station about the same. “A case under Section 368 IPC was registered and we formed teams to search for the missing child. We went and searched in many schools in and around Old Seelumpur area and finally on August 22 we found the boy in Old Seelumpur MCD school,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, East district, Rishi Pal, adding, “On asking the school authorities and the boy, we reached his home and arrested his ‘guardians’.”
On interrogation of the accused, Pal said, they were saying that they were the child’s biological parents but later confessed to have kidnapped him as they did not have any child of their own and they specifically liked Shammi. “Accused Nargis, who had kidnapped the boy from the hospital, further said that she had not particularly planned to kidnap him but had recced the hospital and had found Shammi in a vulnerable position that day,” said Pal. While Samin had a stitching business his wife Nargis was bringing up Shammi.
Shammi was seen outside Karkardooma court with the Investigating officer scared from all the media glare. When asked if Shammi was ready to stay with them, his father Afsar said, “Now the matter is in court and it is for the court to decide. A DNA test on court’s permission will be done on my son to find out his biological parents. The kidnappers had renamed my son as Samir and had admitted him to the MCD school but I am grateful to god that I could see my son again. I thought I had lost him.”