A mother’s instinct, a missing boy, and a DNA test that did not match

After the mother insisted that the boy wasn’t hers, police decided to conduct a DNA test of the two. It wasn’t a match.

And now, the Delhi Police Crime Branch has two cases to solve — look for her son, and find this boy’s parents.

The mother, a 47-year-old homemaker, meanwhile said she feels “cheated”. “I have been begging officers and the court to find my son. They (police) come and take photos of my son and promise something will happen, but nothing does. In June, they brought a boy from Rajasthan, saying he was my son. I told them no, but nobody listened to me. Police told the court I was lying. Now, the DNA report has proved everything. Why won’t I accept my own child? And how can I take someone else’s?” she told The Indian Express.

A senior police officer who was involved in the probe said, “We worked hard and contacted child welfare committees and NGOs on WhatsApp and through other mediums. It was then that this boy was found. We even showed his photo to the complainant, and she said yes… He was found at a children’s home and we also have to find his parents now.”

It was in April 2017 that the boy was kidnapped allegedly by his stepfather, who wanted to take “revenge” because he suspected the boy’s mother of having an affair.

The woman said her first husband died a few years ago, and the man she remarried had promised to take care of her four children. “He left without saying anything. I thought my son was with him and would come back,” she said.

According to police, an FIR was lodged in October 2017, which stated that the child had gone missing six months ago. A kidnapping case was lodged but police couldn’t find any leads.

In 2019, the mother filed a habeas corpus petition in the Delhi High Court. In January 2020, police found the stepfather in Punjab — without the child.

An investigating officer told The Indian Express, “He was the primary suspect. He left Delhi around the same time as the boy went missing. He said he wanted to take revenge on the woman and had taken the child, but the boy went missing from his home a few years later. A polygraph test was conducted but he was released since we didn’t have enough proof.”

In 2021, the man died, said police. Notices and posters were then put up at railway stations, bus stands, and markets, and child welfare committees and NGOs were roped in, but to no avail.

In June this year, the case was transferred to inspector Parmod Kumar under DCP (Crime) Vichitra Veer. Officers said they suspected the boy managed to slip away and got into a train heading to Rajasthan’s Nagaur. A team was sent to Rajasthan and they brought a boy with the same name and age as the missing boy.

“A children’s home there had told us about how they rescued him from the railway station. We thought he was the same boy. We even sent the mother his photo and she said it was her son,” said an officer.

However, the woman told the court the boy wasn’t hers.

DCP Veer then filed a report asking the High Court to allow them to conduct a DNA test. An order dated October 11 read: “Upon perusal of the said (DNA) report… it is evident that the boy, recovered from Nagaur, Rajasthan, is not the biological son of (the woman)… In so far as the missing minor son of (the woman) is concerned, the Delhi Police is directed to continue with its intensive efforts to locate, recover and produce him before this court, at the earliest. In so far as the recovered child of the same name is concerned, we are informed that the authorities have been so far unable to locate his biological parents…”