The spot on BT Road where the seven-month-old girl was abandoned. (Below): Shopkeeper Gautam Das, who helped rescue the infant. Pictures by Santosh Ghosh

A seven-month-old girl got a new lease of life on Friday, soon after she was abandoned on the pavement by an unidentified woman.

An alert shopkeeper, who witnessed it all, rushed to the infant?s rescue. The baby was finally handed over to a non-government organisation by Cossipore police.

This is the second such case in recent times. Barely a month ago, another baby was dumped on Amherst Street.

On Friday, the seven-month-old was dumped on BT Road, near a lane leading to Calcutta University?s Kantakal campus for economics, around 11 am.

According to witnesses, a woman walked up from the north, carrying the baby in her arms. On the spot, she paused for a few minutes, then laid it on an elevated concrete footpath under a tree and scampered away. When chased by a few people, the woman boarded a bus and disappeared.

?I was watching the woman. She was fair and wearing a red sari. She was pacing under the tree for some time, baby in arms. I wondered why she was behaving in such a peculiar manner. She then put the child on the elevated, newly-constructed footpath,? said Gautam Das, owner of a gift shop on BT Road, who had witnessed the incident.

Alarmed that the baby may not be able to survive the heat of concrete, Das stepped out of his shop and started shouting at a few people waiting at the bus stop to prevent the woman from fleeing. He crossed the road, picked up the child and returned to his shop. The baby was swaddled in a cotton shirt and looked weak and hungry.

Back in his shop, Das told the people of his neighbourhood about the baby. Some women cleaned and fed the child and after an hour, she started smiling and even crawled about.

Cossipore police station was informed about the ?little baby? that had been recovered. A team of officers, including a woman officer, was sent to the spot and the baby brought to the police station.

?She crawled and smiled but never cried,? said S. Biswas, additional officer-in-charge of Cossipore police station. Police were initially confused about whether the baby was dead or alive.

After a round of talks with senior officers, police called up an NGO and it was decided that the baby would be kept in its custody.

?Since police have no infrastructure to keep babies in their custody, we decided to hand it over to the NGO,? said Barun Mullick, deputy commissioner of police (north).

Around 3.30 pm, some four hours after she was dumped, the child had found a new home.