Chennai: The mastermind, who orchestrated the stealing of the 15-day-old child from the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai two days ago, has in her possession another 18-month-old child whom she had stolen from a train near Coimbatore a year ago, police have found. City police have begun investigations to trace the biological parents of that child, named Sainath. Her accomplices - A Manimegalai (32) of Salem and E Aishwarya (25) and Sumithra (37) of Red Hills in Chennai - were arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
Meanwhile, in the recent incident, police investigations revealed that Manimegalai (32) had stolen the baby girl to sell it to an unidentified buyer. “Six months ago, she started visiting the Institute of Child health in Chennai and was staying at a lodge in Chepauk with another woman, Aishwarya”, a police officer said.
According to Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP-North), R Sudhakar, the woman who is a high school dropout had identified herself as a police assistant commissioner to a few staff and as an advocate to a few others. Over the course of her visits, she had mentioned that she was in need of a child, specifically a female child and a hospital contract staff; Sumithra (37) had agreed to help her.
Sumithra lured the victim, also named Manimegalai, who had separated from her husband, by the promise of a job and said that her child could accompany her. Believing them, the victim accompanied them to RGGGH for a master health checkup on Monday when they escaped with the child.
“It is only during investigations we found that the victim didn't even know the name of the security woman nor the mastermind. CCTV footage from the place where the main accused was staying helped us in cracking the case,” the JCP said. City police had secured the child from Salem a day after it was stolen Police said that they would be seeking custody of the women to know if they were part of a larger racket.
