Sep 17, 2007, 22:14 GMT
Wellington - New Zealand police were searching Tuesday for the mother of a 3-year-old Chinese girl abandoned at a rail station by her father after he took her to Australia and then flew to the United States.
The girl was in temporary foster care in Melbourne while US police were hunting for her father, named in media reports as Xue Naiyin, in his mid-50s and a director of a Chinese publishing company in Auckland.
The girl was named as Qian Xun Xue, nicknamed Pumpkin by Australian police who were called when she was found crying in Melbourne's Southern Cross station on Saturday, because of the brand of clothing she wore.
New Zealand police visited houses in Auckland and Wellington on Monday evening but did not find the girl's mother, known as Anni or Annie, who is in her late 20s.
The family were reported to have lived in the Auckland suburb of Mount Roskill, but the mother and daughter moved to Wellington after the couple split up last month.
But a family friend was quoted as saying they had since got back together.
Melbourne Police Inspector Brad Shallies was quoted by the New Zealand Herald as urging all New Zealanders to study the girl's photograph, saying that his main concern was finding a relative.
'Have a look at the photo and please contact the police if you are aware of who the child is or more particularly where her family may be in New Zealand,' he said.
'Please do not be concerned - although we are a law-enforcement agency, our focus is really on building some type of family structure back around the girl.
'I'll worry about any criminal provisions or similar at a later time.'
Shallies said the girl and her father arrived in Melbourne on New Zealand passports on Thursday evening, spent two nights in a city hotel, then went to the railway station on Saturday morning.
Closed-circuit TV camera film shows the girl's father leading her by the hand and pulling a suitcase behind him about 8am.
He is then seen bending down and whispering something in the child's ear before leaving her at the base of the escalator.
The security film shows him walking away without looking back.
Your Talkback on this Story