3 months after abduction, Odisha baby reunited with mother

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, May 19:

Tears of joy rolled down the cheeks of Mamata Bamunia alias Kunti as she was reunited with her four-year old son Mohit, who had gone missing from the Railway Station in the Odisha capital, after almost three months.

The 27-year old woman from Nabarangpur could not stop caressing her son, who arrived by the East Coast Express in the lap of GRP personnel at about 7.30 pm this evening. Even onlookers got emotional at this reunion between the mother and son.

The child had been abducted by Annapurna Mandal (55), a female beggar, who had whisked him away to Medinipur in neighbouring West Bengal, her hometown, and ‘gifted’ to her ‘son-less’ daughter.

Any woman in her place would have given up hope long back, but not Kunti. Ostracized by her family who suspected that she had sold off her son, she did not budge from the station since that fateful day on February 26 when the toddler went missing while she was waiting at the station to board the Hirakhand Express to go her native place in Nabarangpur.

Her prying eyes kept looking for her son ever since till she saw a ray of hope in the shape of Annapurna yesterday.

“While I was waiting at the platform in search of my son, I recognized the lady who met me on the day of the abduction. I shouted at her two times. Alerted by my shouting, the accused tried to escape from the platform but was nabbed by the people,” Kunti said.

“I cannot tell you how happy I am today at getting my son back after three months. Almost every day during these three months, I felt like dying. I cannot thank the police officers enough for their hard work  in tracing my son,” said the grateful mother.

After being alerted by Kunti, GRP personnel swung into action and picked up the accused. Earlier today, the police took the woman to Medinipur to trace the missing child. To everyone’s relief, the child was found at her daughter’s place.

The boy was rescued and brought to Bhubaneswar this evening by East Coast Express and handed over to the woman.

 

 

“The accused will be produced before the court and the woman will have to complete the legal formalities before taking the custody of the child,” said Inspector-in-charge (IIC) of GRPS Soubhagya Kumar Swain.

Annapurna confessed that she had taken the child from the platform to Cuttack on a bus and then to Medinipur by train. But she said she never intended to sell the baby. “Since my daughter had no male child, I decided to take this boy and give him to my daughter. I had not taken him to sell,” she said.

Curiously, months before the arrest of Annapurna, GRPS had arrested a woman named Sabi alias Ranima alias Mami alias Rashmita Bagarti (50) of Khariar area of Nuapada district slapping charges 363 of IPC against her and forwarded her to a local court here on March 27, 2015. But it turned out to be a red herring.