Mumbai Crime: ‘Cops are trying to intimidate woman who lost child in taxi’

The Mandovi police have registered a murder and molestation case after a tribal woman alleged that she was touched inappropriately by copassengers and the driver of a private fourwheeler that she had boarded at Pelhar Nalasopara East to travel with her 10monthold daughter to Manor on Saturday morning She had told police her child was thrown out of the moving vehicle and she had jumped out after her The girl died in hospitalConsidering the sensitivity of the matter the case has been transferred to the Crime Branch and the veracity of the womanrsquos allegation is being ascertained as the cops said the incident took place barely within two kilometres from the place she boarded the car to go to Manor on the highwayThe arrested driver PicsHanif PatelIn her statement to police the 19yearold woman said that she jumped out of the running vehicle after her child was thrown out of it on the highway Police said that a patrol vehicle of Highway Safety was just behind the car in which the woman was travelling with her toddler who later succumbed to injuriesAlso read Mumbai Cab driver passengers killed my child says womanlsquoShe wanted to call her husbandrsquoThe woman is a native of a village in Wada taluka and after marriage she started to live with her husband in a rented shelter in Nalasopara Her brotherinlaw said ldquoShe boarded the car on the highway to go to Manor where my brother her husband had been waiting to go to the village Since she did not have a mobile phone with her she asked the driver to make a call to her husband I have been told by her that on the pretext of giving her the mobile phone the driver touched her inappropriately and when she resisted one of the copassengers in the car snatched her baby and threw her out of the running car Subsequently she jumped out of the running car The 10monthold baby is no morerdquoThe woman had being staying with her husband and child at NalasoparaThe alleged incident took place around 1130am on Saturday According to ACP Ramchandra Deshmukh the officials at Highway Safety Patrol rushed the baby and the injured woman to a nearby hospital where the toddler was declared dead Later the woman was taken to a civicrun hospital in Nalasopara for further treatment and her husband was informed about the alleged incidentldquoAt the hospital police officers had been pressuring her to change her statement The cops told her that if the statement is not changed she will be booked in a case and her husband and parents will be arrested She was completely inconsolable after losing her baby girl but the cops had been scolding her at the hospital in Nalasoparardquo said her brotherinlawThe child who died The private car they were in with the other passengers PicsHanif PatelThe incharge of Mandovi police Praful Wagh allegedly took around 12 hours to register the FIR though the woman had been consistent in alleging that she was molested and her baby was killed by her molesters in the moving vehicleA source in the Mira Bhayandar Vasai Virar MBVV police told midday that the driver of the car did not try to escape after the incident After the FIR was registered under section 302 murder and 354 molestation of the IPC the driver was placed under arrestOn Sunday morning the Commissioner of MBVV police Sadanand Date arrived at Mandovi police station to take stock of the situation All the senior officers including the additional commissioner of police Shrikant Pathak Deputy Commissioner of Police Crime Avinash Ambure and crime branch unit head inspectors Pramod Badakh and Sahuraj Ranaware made a beeline for the police station where the family members of the child were transported in the police vehicle from their village in WadaCommissioner Date said that the matter is highly sensitive and the allegations are serious in nature ldquoHence the case has been handed over to the Crime Branch for thorough investigationrdquo midday got a hint from a police officer at Mandovi police station that the woman and her husband had a quarrel over some issues ldquoIt was the reason her husband had been going to his village in Wada and the wife decided to go later with her baby to the villagerdquo said an officerHowever the brotherinlaw of the woman told midday ldquoMy brother works in a private company and lives in Nalasopara He has to spend a lot of money in transportation and it was the reason he was on the way to the village to bring his motorcycle But since his wife was all alone with the baby at home she later decided to go to the village for which she boarded the car The car has a private number plate and it was not a cabrdquoldquoIt is premature to comment on anything right now we are working on all the possible aspects to bring out the truthrdquo said a crime branch officerSearch is on for copassengersThe crime branch sleuths are searching for her copassengers ldquoThe driver told us that they were passengers but the car has a private number plate with the registration of Gujarat The driver is a resident of Vashirdquo said an officer On Saturday night the woman had told midday at the hospital that when she had been waiting at the MumbaiAhmedabad highway a packed vehicle had stopped near her but she did not board that cabldquoThis car was just behind that cab and the driver stopped to ask where I wanted to go When I told the driver to drop me at Manor he asked me to get in and then they started molesting me One of the copassengers threw my baby out of the running vehiclerdquo she told middayDate said ldquoThe veracity of her allegations is being investigated as the woman boarded the vehicle at Pelhar and the alleged incident took place after she travelled hardly two kilometres So all the CCTV footage is being taken and statements of possible eyewitnesses being recordedrdquoAt the time of going to press the statements of three personnel of the Highway Safety Patrol were being recorded at Mandovi police station on Sunday ldquoWe are yet to ascertain how the child came out of the moving car whether the toddler was thrown out by her copassengers the baby accidentally slipped from the grip of her mother or the mother herself threw her out due to some reason We are also checking if the parents of the baby had fought over some issues and so she was travelling separately with her 10month old daughter We have to check all the possibilities The child must be on the lap of her motherrdquo a crime branch officer told middayldquoThere are some missing dots in the sequence which we have to find out We have to handle the case with extra care as the woman has lost her child and is absolutely inconsolable Whenever we try to quiz her to reach a conclusion she breaks out into tears and we are back to square onerdquo said the officerldquoIf needed we will recreate the crime scenerdquo added the officerHer brotherinlaw told midday that after the postmortem ldquothe babyrsquos final rites were conducted at our village in the wee hours of SundayrdquoDec 10Day the incident allegedly took place