New Delhi, April 16 (IANS) In a remarkable operation, the Delhi Police traced and rescued an abducted newborn baby within hours of the incident, an official said on Wednesday. The one-day old baby was stolen from the city’s Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday.

The infant was united with the family and a woman accused of committing the crime was apprehended. The baby was abducted in broad daylight, leaving the parents and hospital administration panicked.

However, a quick operation by Safdarjung Enclave police station helped crack the case within hours of the incident. A 27-year-old woman accused, identified as Pooja, a resident of Malviya Nagar, was arrested.

On Tuesday, the aggrieved parents, hailing from Uttar Pradesh’s Basti and currently living in Chanayakapuri’s Yashwant Place, made a PCR call and reported the theft of their newborn baby girl from the hospital.

Shyam Narayan, father of the baby told police that his wife gave birth to a girl child on April 14 at Safdarjung Hospital. Following delivery, she was shifted to Ward No. 5. A day later, at around 3.15 p.m., their newborn child went missing. They began searching the area but were unable to locate the missing child and subsequently made the PCR Call.

A police team comprising sub-inspector Sunil Gaur, Satyender Gulia and Surender Das, Assistant Sub-inspector Jai Prakash, Head constables Anil, Pushpender, Rajender, Harchand, Pramod, Sunil, Shakti and Dharam Raj was constituted under guidance of ACP Ranbir Singh, who swung into action and nabbed the abductor within four hours.

Upon scanning the CCTV footage of Safdarjung Hospital, they found a woman of healthy build and short height interacting with other female patients on the same floor. She had her face partially covered with a stole/dupatta. From further analysis of CCTV footage, it was revealed that the accused lady boarded the Metro train from AIIMS Metro Station and took away the infant with her.

She was tracked down to Gulak Wali Gali in Malviya Nagar and the newborn was recovered.

According to police, the woman changed metro trains multiple times to mislead the police and avoid being caught via CCTV cameras, but the police team was successful in tracking her down.

During questioning, Pooja disclosed that she deceived her husband Pinku on the pretext of being pregnant and got admitted at Safdarjung Hospital.

On April 15, she came to her house with the infant claiming to be her child. She got married seven years ago.

“As she had no child of her own, she decided to kidnap an infant from the Safdarjung Hospital,” she was cited as telling the police.