The DN Nagar police registered a first information report (FIR) against Harry D’Souza and his wife, Soni, both residents of Juhu Galli, under sections 363 (kidnapping), 365 ( intent for abduction)
Mumbai: For 16-year-old Pooja Gaud, August 5 will forever remain etched in her mind as the day that proved that miracles do indeed occur. The teenager was reunited with her mother nine years after she was allegedly kidnapped by a couple barely a kilometre away from where she lived in a slum in Juhu Galli, Andheri.
The DN Nagar police registered a first information report (FIR) against Harry D’Souza and his wife, Soni, both residents of Juhu Galli, under sections 363 (kidnapping), 365 ( intent for abduction), 368 (wrongful confinement ), 370 ( trafficking) and 374 (unlawfully compelling a person for labour ) of the Indian Penal Code.D’Souza was arrested late Thursday night and remanded to police custody till August 10.
The search for Pooja made headlines when Assistant Sub Inspector Rajendra Bhosale, who was incharge of the missing persons’ bureau at DN Nagar police station from 2010 to 2015 had said that his team had managed to find all the children reported missing at his bureau save one: Pooja.
“I still carry her photo in my wallet,” Bhosale said, speaking from his home in Khed, in Ratnagiri district. The 65-year-old who retired in 2015, used to carry the well-thumbed photo of Pooja as a class 2 student in a blue pinafore, in his shirt pocket, in the hope of locating her. “Even after my retirement, I thought about the girl every day and prayed that she is found. I am elated and I can now rest without any more tension.”