Mumbai police nab undertrial who escaped from JJ Hospital

More than a week after an undertrial escaped from JJ Hospital, the Mumbai police has managed to nab her at Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh. She was taken into custody by a team of the Mumbai police and the UP police, from the general compartment of a train headed back to Mumbai.

The undertrial, identified as Zubeida Khatun (25), was lodged in Byculla women’s prison following an arrest in a kidnapping case in 2012. On August 13, Khatun went to JJ Hospital to get her son treated for chickenpox. At the hospital she managed to escape from under the watch of three guards.

Officials in the JJ Marg police station, who were investigating the case, said that after leaving the hospital she boarded a local train to head to suburban Malad. “She stayed with a friend there and the next day went to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus via Bandra and boarded a train to Gorakhpur,” said Senior police inspector Dilip Shinde. He added that after getting off at Gorakhpur, Khatun went to Basti to stay with her relatives.

A police source said that Khatun stayed with her relatives for some days till one of them received a call from Mumbai informing them that Khatun had escaped from prison. “She had lied to her relatives and once they realised she had escaped from prison they demanded that she leave. They did not want to get into trouble for letting her stay in their house,” said a police officer.

The Mumbai police, acting on a tip-off, had already sent a team to UP to look for Khatun. “We received a tip that she had left her relatives’ house and was on her way back to the city. So we started checking all the trains for that day and when her train reached Jhansi, a team boarded it and found her sitting in the general compartment,” said Mr Shinde.

A police source revealed that, when questioned, Khatun said that the women guards escorting her were distracted and they had left her alone for nearly 15 minutes. “She took advantage of the guards not being around and escaped from the hospital,” said the source.