Woman kidnaps month-old baby to hide fake pregnancy, lands in police net

A woman was arrested for allegedly kidnapping a one-month-old baby to convince her husband, who works in Chennai, that she was pregnant after abortion, the police said on Tuesday.

The accused, identified as Shanu Sarkar (28), alias Jasmine, a resident of South Dinajpur, West Bengal, had earlier undergone an abortion, but she kept on extracting money from her husband in the name of fake pregnancy.

The case came to light after a man from Bhind, Madhya Pradesh, registered a complaint at the Nangloi police station in Outer Delhi stating that his one-month-old daughter had been kidnapped.

He stated that his wife gave birth to a child on August 31 at Sanjay

Gandhi Hospital in Mangolpuri, where an unidentified woman befriended her during the stay. After a few days, the same woman called his wife and offered to help take care of the baby.

The accused then took the mother and child to the Nangloi Metro station on the pretext of buying clothes. When the mother began feeling nauseous, the woman took advantage of the situation and fled with the baby.

Based on the complaint, the police registered a kidnapping case and examined CCTVs to trace the accused. On October 5, the woman was arrested from Prem Nagar, and the baby was recovered.

Investigations revealed that Shanu had earlier been married to Vijay Kumar, a resident of Paschim Vihar, about 11 years ago. The couple had a 10-year-old daughter. They later moved to Delhi in search of work, where Shanu met another man, Najrul Sheikh, from Farakka, West Bengal. In February 2025, she left her husband and daughter to marry Najrul.

Najrul later moved to Chennai for work, while Shanu stayed in Delhi. During this period, she became pregnant but

later had an abortion. Despite that, she kept telling her husband that she was still pregnant and demanded money from him. To maintain her lie and convince him, she kidnapped the baby.