A three-year-old girl was discovered at Mathura railway station in October and is now caught in a dispute between two women who both claim to be her mother. The girl, who is currently staying at a Children’s Protection Home, is awaiting the results of a DNA test to resolve the confusion.
Heena Chauhan, a 24-year-old woman who was arrested for suspected kidnapping, asserts that the girl is her daughter. However, Phoolwati, a woman from Haridwar, has also come forward to the police with the same claim, stating that the child was kidnapped in January.
The fate of the girl remains uncertain until the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report is released. She was placed in the protection home under the direction of the Mathura Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
According to the police, the case dates back to January 7 of this year when Phoolwati, a 26-year-old resident of Haridwar, reported that unidentified individuals had kidnapped her daughter from Mathura railway station where she was waiting for a train to Bharatpur in Rajasthan. A kidnapping case was filed at the Mathura Government Railway Police station.
Almost 10 months after the girl went missing, the police arrested five people, including Heena Chauhan, on October 10 at another railway station in Mathura and found a three-year-old girl with them. The five arrested individuals, two of whom were women, were identified by the police as members of a child-lifting gang. The Mathura railway police filed a chargesheet against them for kidnapping.
“We informed Phoolwati that a girl was found. She came to Mathura with her parents and identified the girl as her daughter based on a mark the child had on her back,” said Sub-Inspector Gaurav Verma, the investigating officer in the case.
About a week after the arrest, Heena’s husband Raja Chauhan filed an application before the CWC claiming that the girl was his daughter. Heena was detained in jail.
“On Raja Chauhan’s claim, the CWC directed the police to conduct a DNA test to determine the parents of the girl. Blood samples of Phoolwati and the girl were collected, along with those of Heena and Phoolwati’s husband Karan, who is in Haridwar jail on theft charges, after obtaining permission from the concerned court,” Verma stated.
He also mentioned that since Phoolwati could not provide any documents related to the child’s birth, the CWC directed that the girl be sent to the Children Protection Home. “The next course of action would be decided after obtaining the FSL report,” the sub-inspector said.
The police are currently searching for Raja Chauhan, who has been untraceable since filing the complaint. Officers have also decided to send his sample for examination.
