In October 2023, news reports hailed the Mathura Government Railway Police for successfully reuniting a mother with her two-year-old daughter who had been “kidnapped” 10 months before. The police were lauded for their “extensive and unrelenting investigation”.
Among those arrested was a homeless woman named Hina Chauhan in Delhi. She was charged with kidnapping and being part of a “child trafficking” ring. She was then jailed in Mathura awaiting trial.
However, a DNA report – conducted over a year ago but made available only last month – confirmed that Hina is the biological mother of the “kidnapped” child who, as it turns out, was not kidnapped at all. Yet she spent 15 months in jail before being granted bail on February 7. The case against her is still standing.
While granting her bail, a Mathura court noted the “negligence” of investigating officer Gaurav Verma and ordered that action be taken against him. Newslaundry has a copy of the bail order.
Hina finally walked out of jail on Saturday, February 8 and returned to Delhi. When Newslaundry met the couple at the Motia Khan shelter home in central Delhi, where they’ve been living for several years, Hina looked relieved, refreshed and determined to get justice.
“I want the officials responsible for this to be punished,” she told Newslaundry.
Newslaundry repeatedly contacted the police for comment for this story, but received no response.
‘We were helpless'
Hina’s family’s ordeal began on October 7, 2023.
At about 3 am, a contingent of cops, both uniformed and plainsclothed, landed up at the Motia Khan homeless shelter, where Hina and several family members live. According to Hina, she had been unwell, so her daughter Neema was with her sister Lata and Lata’s husband Sunil.
She said she saw the police enter the shelter home and grab Neema, Lata and Sunil and escort them away.
“When I saw them taking Neema away, I ran after them pleading that she’s my daughter. They didn’t listen. When I reached the police vehicle at the gate, they told me that if I’m really her mother, I should come to the police station and state my case. Then they would release her,” she said.
So Hina was also herded into the police vehicle with her daughter, Lata and Sunil. Ressa, who also stays at the shelter home, confirmed this sequence of events to Newslaundry. She said, “I was near the gate when they took Neema. Hina ran after them, screaming that she was her child. The police had guns...we were helpless.”
Newslaundry spoke to Shakuntala, whose son Raja is married to Hina. She said that all she knew that night was that the police had taken away the four people, and no one knew what was going on.
“We rushed to the Sadar Bazar police station, begging and pleading to know where they had been taken,” said Shakuntala. “But no one was willing to tell us.” After persistent questioning, the family was informed that Hina had been taken into custody by the GRP in Mathura in connection with the alleged kidnapping of a child.
On October 11, 2023, four days after being picked up, Lata and Sunil were released. They weren’t charged or arrested, but Hina was kept behind bars.
A DNA test and a ‘ray of hope’
Hina’s arrest was tied to an FIR filed by a woman named Phulwati in Haridwar. Phulwati’s two-year-old daughter had gone missing from Mathura railway station in January 2023. According to the complaint, the child disappeared in the early hours of the morning while Phulwati was asleep.
The FIR was filed against persons unknown. It’s unclear who else was arrested in connection with the case; news reports at the time alleged “five” had been held.
Hina was brought to Mathura from Delhi and jailed. The Mathura GRP then attempted to hand the child Neema over to Phulwati, the woman they claimed was the child’s mother. But Hina’s husband Raja filed a petition before the District Children Welfare Committee in Mathura, demanding a DNA test to confirm the identity of Neema’s biological mother.
On October 16, 2023, the committee ordered for a DNA test. The Mathura GRP conducted it on January 31, 2024. The committee then sought the results of the test from the GRP on three separate occasions – in February 2024, in June 2024, and again in September 2024.
It took nearly a year for the GRP to submit the DNA report to the committee on January 24, 2025. The DNA report confirmed that Neema was indeed Hina’s biological daughter.
Neema, who was homed by the District Child Welfare Committee during this entire period, was moved to join her mother at the Mathura jail just a week before Hina got bail. “Only when my daughter was returned to me did I learn about the DNA results,” Hina told Newslaundry. “That was the first time in months that I saw a ray of hope.”
After the DNA results were reported in the media last month, Abhishek Verma, the superintendent of police (Railways) ordered a departmental inquiry and said “action will be taken” against the GRP team responsible. He also said action will be taken against Gaurav Verma, the GRP officer who has now been pulled up by the Mathura court for negligence. Abhishek Verma did not respond to our requests for comment.
The case has now been handed over to the Circle Officer of the Railways Police and has been given 15 days to investigate.
'Worried about my children'
Newslaundry had interviewed Shakuntala at the shelter home days before Hina was released. At the time, she looked exhausted. The three-storey building was overflowing with people who had no other place to go; some pitched makeshift tents at the entrance for lack of space inside while barefoot children played on the busy road outside.
Shakuntala and her husband Jaiswant are originally from Maharashtra. When they came to Delhi, they lived in a jhuggi near Pusa Gate in Rajender Nagar until they were evicted in 2001. Homeless, they moved around until they settled in the Motia Khan shelter home in 2011.
Shankuntala said Raja was unwell and undergoing treatment at Lady Hardinge Hospital in Delhi. She showed this reporter a handful of medical prescriptions, saying the “stress has affected Raja’s health”. Apart from Neema, Hina and Raja have two other daughters and a son, all of whom stayed with Shakuntala after Hina’s imprisonment.
Shakuntala said they’re barely able to make ends meet. Their only source of income came from selling flowers at traffic signals and doing odd jobs. “We wouldn’t be facing all this if we had money,” she said. “Even Hina wouldn’t have been behind bars.”
Raja, who spoke to Newslaundry after Hina’s release, said this was the first time he was seeing his wife since her arrest. “When I heard about the DNA test results last month, I finally felt a glimmer of hope and knew no one could keep her in jail any longer, ” he said.
Hina said she “almost lost all hope” during the time she spent in jail. Shakuntala had been permitted to meet her just once. “That’s when I found out that Raja was also unwell. I cried endlessly. I kept worrying about my three children. Who was taking care of them? What were they eating? My youngest child was still breastfeeding.”
Case should have been ‘open and shut’
Along with Hina, three others got bail in the case. They each had to furnish a personal bond of Rs 20,000.
Advocate Nitin Kumar Nayak of the Delhi High Court, who represented Hina in her bail application in Mathura court, told Newslaundry it is entirely the fault of the police that Hina spent this much time in jail.
“There are many loopholes in the process. First, they picked them up from Delhi but showed on paper they were caught in Mathura. Then, they also kept the court in the dark about the DNA test. Because charges have been framed against them before the result of the DNA test arrived,” Nayak said.
He added that the case should have been “open and shut”.
“This case could have fallen apart in the charge framing stage with the DNA results. But now we have to move to court against these charges or approach the Allahabad High Court for its quashing,” he added.
Child rights activist Varun Pathak told Newslaundry that the bail order amounts to only “partial justice” until Hina is declared innocent.
“The loss of motherhood and the impact on childhood during the past 15 months of incarceration affects not only Hina and Neema but also her other children, who were forced to live apart and deprived of essential care. This issue must be addressed,” he said. “The authorities and government cannot shirk their responsibilities.”
He further stressed that compensation for the victims should be deducted from the salaries of the officials found guilty in this case.
Sunil Kumar Aledia from the Centre for Holistic Development has been assisting Hina’s family in the case. He told Newslaundry the case reflects a harsh truth – “in this system, poverty is treated as a crime.” “A mother was jailed just so they could showcase their ‘good work’ to the public,” he said.
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