THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : In a major twist in the probe on the case of the mysterious disappearance of a two-year-old girl from Chakkai on Monday, the police have decided to conduct a DNA test on the girl to ensure her parentage.
The decision was taken on Thursday after the police grew suspicious of the Bihari family’s conduct. The samples for DNA testing were collected from the child and her parents and sent to the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology.
The girl child is now staying at the Child Welfare Committee facility, while her parents and other relatives of the child have demanded that she be returned to the family. They were not interested in continuing with the police case and wanted to get back the child and leave for Hyderabad.
The police, however, maintained that the child and the family will not be allowed to leave any time soon as the probe is in a crucial phase.
As the family kept on insisting, it triggered suspicion, following which the police opted for DNA profiling.
“The conduct of the child’s family heightened the police’s suspicion regarding the parentage of the child. There is also a hint of suspicion about whether the child reached the hands of the Bihari couple via trafficking. To confirm this, a DNA test is inevitable,” said police sources.
The sources added that the police will raise its objection before the CWC against leaving the child with her parents before the investigation is over.
“The child is still undergoing psychological counselling. She has not returned to a cognitive state to give any statement. Her family, however, is indifferent to our probe,” the sources added.
The police have been struggling to find what exactly happened with the child, who reportedly went missing while she was asleep on the street with her family.
The missing episode precipitated fears of the child being kidnapped. However, before the police could substantiate their apprehensions, the child was recovered from a drain in an isolated area near the Brahmos Aerospace compound. The police are currently treating the case as kidnapping, but they have not managed to garner any evidence to substantiate their assumption.