Shweta Jain thought she knew where her three-year-old was — where else would she be on a Tuesday morning but in school? But an hour after she watched her daughter board the bus to her school in Chembur, her husband got a call from a stranger, informing them he had seen the toddler crying on the footpath in Kurla.

"We were at home when my husband received the call. We could not believe what we had heard, as I had watched Anushi boarding the school bus that morning," recalled Shweta.