Woman fakes pregnancy, kidnaps newborn from Safdarjung hospital

A 27-year-old woman was arrested for allegedly kidnapping a newborn girl from the maternity ward of Safdarjung Hospital, an official said here on Wednesday.

What initially seemed like a random act of theft soon revealed a shocking truth. The accused, Pooja, had spent months crafting an elaborate lie, pretending to be pregnant in order to steal the child.

During her interrogation, Pooja confessed to deceiving her husband for months, fabricating a pregnancy to cover up her inability to conceive. She went to great lengths, even faking hospital visits and pregnancy symptoms, to convince him she was expecting.

On April 14, she took her deception further by pretending to be admitted to Safdarjung Hospital. The next day, she returned to the hospital’s postnatal ward under the guise of being a new mother and stole a one-day-old baby girl.

“I just wanted to be a mother, even if it meant taking someone else’s child," Pooja admitted in her statement to the police.

The confession came after a swift police investigation, which began when the baby was reported missing from the hospital at 3:17 pm on April 15. The child’s father, a resident of Yashwant Place in Chanakyapuri, alerted the police, setting off a massive search operation.

Police teams, including sub-inspectors and constables, were quickly deployed to track the accused. CCTV footage from the hospital revealed a woman, whose face was partially covered with a dupatta, moving through the postnatal care ward. The footage showed her leaving the hospital with the newborn.

Further tracking revealed her movement on the Metro network. She boarded a train at AIIMS Metro Station, got off at INA and boarded another train towards Huda City Centre, seemingly to mislead the investigators. The trail then led to Hauz Khas Metro Station, where she exited and eventually took an auto-rickshaw from Panchsheel Flyover.

Despite limited CCTV coverage in some areas, the police managed to trace the auto-rickshaw using partial registration details. This led them to Gulak Wali Gali near Malviya Nagar, where the woman was located and arrested.

The baby was safely recovered from her possession. In her confession, Pooja explained how she had been married for seven years and had long struggled with infertility.

Desperate to fill the void in her life, she created an elaborate ruse — convincing her husband, family and friends that she was pregnant. Pooja claimed the newborn as her own, hoping to keep the lie intact but was caught by the cops.