911 call reveals second incident of child left in car - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Eyewitness News has learned a mother accused of leaving her baby in a 100-degree car while she shopped may have done the same thing earlier at another store.

A 911 call from an employee at the Hamilton Town Center may be pointing to that fact.

The caller from the store Coldwater Creek tells the operator she has no idea how long the baby has been in the car, but that a shopper reported it and they're concerned about the child's safety, because it was alone and there was no parent in sight.

"There's a baby in a Lexus between Coldwater Creek and The Loft. The windows are down still and I don't know how long it's been out there," the female caller told the 911 operator.

It was a potentially life-threatening situation, a baby alone in a car with temperatures near 100. While the caller is on the phone, a woman returns to the car.

"There's a lady getting in the car right now," the caller told the operator.

The dispatcher then told the caller, "There should be a security officer right in front of Coldwater Creek."

The same day, police are called again to Bed Bath and Beyond when a Lexus, matching the same description as the one from the earlier 911 call, is found parked again with an 11-month-old child alone inside.

"If a vehicle is closed, in others words, the windows are up, or even the windows are down a little bit, temperatures can soar as high as 120, 125 degrees inside the vehicle," said Noblesville Police Lt. Bruce Barnes.

In this case, police said the temperature inside the car was 110 degrees. The child's mother, Pooja Thakkar, was arrested on a preliminary charge of neglect. Police said she told them she was shopping.

Thakkar's arrest is the third one after a parent left a child alone in a hot car during a month that's seen record-high temperatures. Earlier this month, a Greenfield man was arrested after leaving his young infant daughter in a vehicle for nearly two hours on a sweltering afternoon. The child died.

That same weekend, a 16-month-old girl went into seizures after police say her mother left her in a car for an hour while she went shopping. The child was in critical condition, but was eventually released from the hospital.

"You gotta ask yourself, 'Would you be willing to put yourself in that very position?' and I think more times than not, as responsible adults, we would say absolutely not, " Barnes said.

Eyewitness News went to Thakkar's house to ask our own questions.

"I wondered if your wife would talk to us about leaving the baby in the car?

A man who did not identify himself told Eyewitness News, "We would really appreciate if we got some privacy. Ok?"

The man said Thakkar did not have a lawyer yet.