Dubai, May 28: The Dubai Public Prosecution is interrogating a 33-year-old Omani woman who abandoned her two-year-old boy a year ago at Emirates Cooperative at Hatta last year.
The woman, who was arrested recently by the Dubai police, had entered the Emirate Cooperative — Hatta pretending to be shopping for some goods, putting them in the shopping trolley, where she had also placed the child. After some time, she left the place and the Emirates Cooperative officials kept looking for her for hours, said Khalill Ibrahim Al Mansouri, Director of General Department of Criminal Investigation
When she did not turn up, the director of the Emirates Cooperative called the Hatta Police. The security cameras showed that a woman wearing an abaya, whose face was covered, had placed the child in the trolley.
During the interrogation by the Public Prosecution, the suspect said that she had escaped from her home in Ajman 10 years ago following a dispute with her family. She moved to Al Braimi and started her own business.
Later, she got into a relationship with a 34-year-old UAE national. When she fell pregnant, the Emirati man told her to get an abortion. So, she went to a doctor in Sharjah to get the child aborted but the doctor refused to do so. So, she continued her pregnancy. At the time of delivery, one of her friends in Al Ain let her present herself as his wife. She had a son. After keeping the boy for two years, the father told her that she should get rid of him. She tried to convince him otherwise but he did not budge. The woman said she then drove up to Emirates Cooperative in Hatta area in Dubai, where she kept the boy in the shopping trolley and fled the scene later.
The baby was referred to child care house in Dubai foundation for women and children. However, in February, the woman called up at the facility to ask how the boy was doing. She would call from time to time to ask about the boy’s condition. That is when the police started tracking her down.
When the police tried to convince her to take her child, she said she will be ready to do so but there was no way anyone was to find out about it. T
he police also managed to contact her family in Ajman, who told them that she had left home 10 years ago and they had filed a missing person’s complaint with the police, following which a circular had also been issued by them. They told the police that they had no information about her.
The CID officials then launched an investigation and interrogated some people who happened to know the woman, and even traced her phone calls. They were led to her home in Al Braimi area on the UAE-Oman border. During the investigation, she confessed that she was doing business and had to move across the emirates.
She also confessed to having delivered a baby out of wedlock and that she had abandoned the child.
The police are currently chasing the alleged father of the child, the 34-year-old Emirati national, who is also wanted by the police for issuing dud cheques. Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazina said Dubai Police have assigned a number of women police officials in various departments, who are trained to deal with problems involving families and also related crimes.
–Agencies