Kerala: Nomadic couple’s 2-year-old daughter found in drainage canal

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 19 (PTI) Nearly 20 hours after she went missing from a wayside tent, a two-year-old girl, the daughter of a nomadic couple from Bihar, was found in a deep drainage canal near a railway track here on Monday evening.

A police team carrying out a search in the area, came across the child found lying in the drainage behind the Brahmos Aerospace campus in Chackai here, police said.

They later shifted the girl to the nearby general hospital.

Confirming that the toddler was traced, DCP Nidhinraj told reporters that the priority of the police is to provide medical care to the child.

"We found her alive...that is more important. The child seems to be ok. The rest we can only tell after a detailed medical check-up," he said.

General Education Minister V Sivankutty, who reached the hospital, said the child was found during a search carried out by the police in the area.

"It was an isolated area... the police personnel found the child lying in the drainage canal there. They shifted the child to the hospital in 10 minutes," he said.

The minister also said that she was safe and healthy but looked frightened.

The police officer, who carried the child to safety, said the first thought that came to his mind was that the girl was dead.

"When we found the child in the canal, she was found lying in between two roots... when we flashed lights into her eyes, she blinked. Then I jumped into the canal without any hesitation to lift her," he said.

The child's parents, who had been at the Pettah police station since early morning, burst into tears of joy after learning about her rescue and thanked the authorities with folded hands.

The police are yet to divulge additional details.

However, a resident of the locality told media that no one was in the area till this evening and expressed doubts if somebody might have abandoned her there.

The incident took place after midnight when the girl was sleeping with her siblings and parents in an isolated place near the main road adjacent to the All Saints College here, they said.

Soon after the girl went missing, the victim's family members rushed to the nearby police station seeking help.

According to police sources, a person was seen moving around in a two-wheeler in a suspicious manner in the area during the time.

After shifting the girl to the hospital for checkup, city police commissioner C H Nagaraju said they were unable to gather any clues even after examining all the CCTVs along the road.

"The place was covered with thick vegetation. We started using drone since afternoon and found the drainage which was fully covered. We found the child there," he told reporters.

After the preliminary medical check up, the doctors have said that her health condition was satisfactory.

"The area where she was found is around 1 km away from the spot she went missing. It's doubtful that she walked all the way till there," the officer said.

We are yet to ascertain how the child reached the spot, he added. PTI