Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / August 2009

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/ahmedabad/Three-women-nabbed-for-st
ealing-two-baby-girls/articleshow/4934415.cms

Three women nabbed for stealing two baby girls
TNN 26 August 2009,

AHMEDABAD: Fact can often be stranger than fiction. And here is one
such case. Two girls in their 20s have been arrested and another
detained by
the Navrangpura police on charges of abducting two baby girls,
allegedly to give them to a childless couple.

"Gunwant Thakkar, a trader and resident from Vejalpur had applied at a
local orphanage to adopt a girl child. Two women then approached him
claiming to be from the orphanage and offered him a baby girl for
adoption. However, when he demanded legal documents, the girls told
him that they would return with them soon. Thakkar kept the baby on
this assurance," said a Navrangpura police station official.

On August 21, the girls returned, but only to take the baby back. They
promised they would soon return with proper documents. The girls
returned at 3.15 am the next day.

"The woman called Thakkar down from his apartment. When Thakkar came
down, he saw the baby girl lying unattended on a bench in the
apartment campus. This however was not the same girl that he had been
given earlier. Baffled, when called up the police, two girls, who had
masked their faces with dupatta, suddenly surfaced and took the baby
away on a scooter. They apparently returned the baby to her parents,
on the footpath the next morning," said the official.

The cops started tracking the telephone number from which Thakkar had
got calls from the women and caught up with Darshana Patel, a resident
of Shahibaug. Following this Thakkar's niece, Shreya from Vadaj and
another girl Aarti Patel were arrested. They told the police that
their friend, Rina Rana, had entrusted her daughter in their care
since she was busy hunting for jobs after getting divorced.

"Strangely, Shreya told them about Thakkar's story and handed over the
baby to him. However, when Rina asked for her baby and threatened to
call the police, they got the girl back. This angered Thakkar. To
pacify him, they abducted the baby girl from Ashram Road. When Thakkar
started calling the police, they panicked, took the girl and returned
her to her home - by the roadside - on August 21 morning," said DA
Desai, inspector of Navrangpura police station.