Mother of 8 finds 4-year-old missing 13 hours after Dargah visit, cops reunite family next day

The girl, Ayat Shaikh, meanwhile, had got separated from the family at Sion railway station from where the railway police located her Saturday.

When the police could not find her parents, the girl was lodged with an NGO in Mahalaxmi by the end of the day. The police said that the girl was reunited with her family on Monday.

Police said that Haseena Shaikh reported the matter at Dharavi police station at 4 am on Sunday.

“As it was a sensitive matter, we immediately registered a case of kidnapping and started looking for the girl,” said senior police inspector Raju Bidkar, adding that the family initially thought that the girl had gone out to play and not returned.

The family had gone for an overnight trip to the dargah on Friday. “I returned home with eight children at 1.30 pm on Saturday and because we were all tired, we went to sleep after having our lunch,” Shaikh told police.

“When I woke up in the evening, Ayat went to play outside. However at 1 am on Sunday, my eldest son Yala noticed that Ayat was missing,” Shaikh told the police.

The family subsequently looked for the girl at Machchi Galli, 90 feet road and Sion station but she was nowhere to be found.

They reported the matter to the police claiming that their daughter might have been abducted. Simultaneously, a team was deployed at their residential area and started scrutinising the CCTV footages.

“We checked the footage of the cameras installed in and around the area, but we could not spot the girl stepping out of the house or the area,” an investigator said.

With no clue on the girl’s location, the police then started inquiring about their return journey from Haji Malang Dargah and in a hope of finding her, they put her picture on different WhatsApp groups that consists of personnel from different police stations, units and branches.

“After I posted her picture in one such group, which is meant to help trace missing persons, a personnel from Dadar GRP responded that Ayat is with them,” a police officer said.

Ayat was found by the government railway police personnel at Sion railway station on Saturday afternoon and during the course of the investigation, the Dharavi police learnt that the girl never reached home on Saturday.

She got separated from the rest of the family and was lost at Sion railway station while they were returning home from Haji Malang dargah.

The girl’s father Saheb Ali said, “They alighted the train at Sion station on platform number 2 and while they were walking towards home, Ayat wanted to drink water. So she went to platform number 1 without telling anyone and nobody realised her absence till late night.”

A police officer said, “Apart from her name, the girl could not reveal any details about her parents and her address. So they looked for them around the station area and waited for her parents to report but as none of it happened, they took her to an NGO and lodged her there.”

The father added, “My wife and children were accompanied by other families from the neighbourhood too. We came to know that she was located on Sunday itself, but she was handed over to us on Monday.”