3 min readMumbaiJan 30, 2026 09:31 PM IST
First published on: Jan 30, 2026 at 09:31 PM IST
In an investigation where clues kept failing them, it was eventually a toddler’s socks and a network of nearly 1,600 CCTV cameras that helped the Thane police solve the kidnapping case in which three persons were arrested on Thursday.
The kidnapping had taken place on January 22 when Farzana Mansoori (23), a Mumbra resident, was crossing the road with her two daughters Anbiya (3) and Afiya (3 months). As her daughter started crying, a burqa-clad woman approached her and said she too was crossing the road and can hold her younger daughter.
Farzana handed over her daughter to the woman. However, when she reached the other side of the road, the woman was nowhere to be seen. When the woman could not be traced even after searching for a while, Farzana suspected the woman was a kidnapper and approached the local Mumbra police station where a kidnapping case was registered.
The police began the probe and found the CCTV in which the woman is seen getting into an auto soon after crossing the road. Thane Police Commissioner Ashutosh Dumbare said that while the registration number of the auto could not be seen in the CCTV, the team could spot ‘aai’ (mother) written at the back of the auto and were able to identify the auto. The driver told the police that he dropped the woman at the Mumbra railway station.
Six teams spotted a woman getting into a Badlapur train and tracked CCTV footage and located her to Badlapur. However, it turned out to be the wrong woman.
“Our teams began scanning the footage again and found another burqa-clad woman. This time, while the toddler was covered under her burqa, a few inches of the toddler’s socks were visible based on which her mother identified the daughter,” Dumbare said. The police team saw she was speaking to another couple at the Mumbra railway station to whom she handed over the kid and left the station.
The couple were seen leaving the railway platform in a CSMT-bound train. While the police team tracked them to Thane railway station where they had changed their appearance, they were not seen in any more footages. The police team then focused on the woman who had handed over the toddler to the couple.
They scanned CCTV cameras and found the auto driver had dropped her to Shadi Mahal Road in Insha Nagar area of Mumbra. “Since there were many buildings there, the police used their local informers and eventually identified the woman as Nasreena Shaikh,” Dumbare said.
When the police questioned Shaikh, she broke down and said that she had abducted the girl and handed her over to her sister Khairunnisa Gulab and brother-in-law Mohd Gulab who had taken her to Khetri village in Akola district. “We immediately sent a police team to Akola and took safe custody of the toddler and arrested the couple,” Dumbare said.
He added, “The couple that hailed from Akola did not have a child for the past eight to nine years. Khairunnisa told us that she had seen some videos on YouTube about minors being left abandoned in Mumbra and had told her sister about it. They had made attempts in the past too to abduct a minor but were not successful.”
Thane Police Commissioner Ashutosh Dumbare holding the toddler with the mother standing behind. 
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