Within 24 hours of the discovery of a two-day-old girl in a basket on a footpath outside a hostel in Takka, Panvel, on June 28, the police arrested her biological parents, a 24-year-old man and his 23-year-old wife, who are related. According to the cops, the couple, both college graduates, had been hiding their one-year-old marriage and had abandoned the baby out of fear of being “caught”.
 
Senior Police Inspector Nitin Thakare of the Panvel City police station, who is heading the investigation into the matter, said, “We found out during questioning that not were the man and woman in a relationship; they had been legally married for a year. But they had kept it a secret from their families.” The couple told the police that when their daughter was born, the matter of explaining the birth to their families led them to take the drastic step of abandoning the child.

The note left behind by the couple. Pics/By Special Arrangement

According to police sources, the couple panicked when the news of the baby’s abandonment went viral on social media and was covered by the traditional media. They were about to surrender when the police, using CCTV footage and local informants, nabbed them. “They feared social backlash and the humiliation of their family if knowledge of their marriage and the baby’s birth became public. This drove them to commit this shocking act,” said Thakare.