A police team searching the area came across the child lying in the drainage behind the BrahMos Aerospace campus in Chackai, police said.
Published Feb 20, 2024 | 11:14 AM ⚊ Updated Feb 20, 2024 | 11:23 AM
The girl was abducted on 18 February. (Representational image/iStock)
Nearly 20 hours after she went missing from a wayside tent, a two-year-old girl, the daughter of a nomadic couple from Bihar, was found in a deep drainage canal near a railway track in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday evening, 19 February.
A police team searching the area came across the child lying in the drainage behind the BrahMos Aerospace campus in Chackai, police said.
They later shifted the girl to the nearby general hospital.
Confirming that the toddler was traced, Deputy Commissioner Of Police Nidhinraj told reporters that the priority of the police is to provide medical care to the child.
“We found her alive…that is more important. The child seems to be okay. The rest we can tell only after a detailed medical check-up,” he said.
General Education Minister V Sivankutty, who reached the hospital, said that the child was found during a search carried out by the police in the area.
“It was an isolated area… police personnel found the child lying in the drainage canal there. They shifted the child to the hospital in 10 minutes,” he said.
The Minister also said that she was safe and healthy but looked frightened.
The police officer, who carried the child to safety, said the first thought that came to his mind was that the girl was dead. “When we found the child in the canal, she was found lying in between two roots… when we flashed light on her eyes, she blinked. Then I jumped into the canal without any hesitation to lift her out,” he said.
The child’s parents, who had been at the Pettah Police Station since early morning, burst into tears of joy after learning about her rescue and thanked the authorities with folded hands.
The police are yet to divulge additional details. However, a resident of the locality told reporters that no one was in the area till this evening and expressed doubts if somebody might have abandoned her there.
The incident took place after midnight when the girl was sleeping with her siblings and parents in an isolated place near the main road adjacent to All Saints College, the police said.
Soon after the girl went missing, the victim’s family members rushed to the nearby police station to seek help.
According to police sources, a person was seen moving around in a two-wheeler in a suspicious manner in the area at the time.
After shifting the girl to the hospital for a check-up, City Police Commissioner CH Nagaraju said that they were unable to gather any clues even after examining all the CCTVs along the road.
“The place was covered with thick vegetation. We started using drones since afternoon and found the drainage which was fully covered. We found the child there,” he told reporters.
After the preliminary medical check-up, the doctors have said that her health condition was satisfactory.
“The area where she was found is around 1 km away from the spot she went missing. It’s doubtful that she walked all the way till there,” the officer said.
We are yet to ascertain how the child reached the spot, he added.
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