E-Paper
Ludhiana woman steals newborn girl from civil hospital, held
The grandmother had handed over the newborn girl to the accused woman, while she helped her daughter use the washroom at the mother-child ward of the Ludhiana civil hospital
An unidentified woman, who abducted a newborn girl from Lord Mahavira Civil Hospital in Ludhiana on Saturday afternoon, was arrested within hours of the incident.
The baby’s father, Narinder Kumar of Islamganj, said his wife Rani had delivered a girl 15 days ago at the civil hospital. Both of them had been discharged from the hospital, but his wife developed some complications, after which she was readmitted to the mother-child ward of the hospital on October 27.
His mother-in-law who had been attending to her grandchild at the hospital had handed her over the accused woman, while she helped Rani use the washroom. Later, the accused and the baby were nowhere to be found in the mother-child ward, he said.
The parents raised the alarm and a police party from Division Number 2 and Division Number 3 reached the spot and scanned CCTV footage, but to no avail. The woman could not be seen exiting the hospital, and the cops believe she fled through the damaged compound wall behind the mortuary. Some CCTV cameras were found to be non-functional. Congress MLA Surinder Dawar also came to the hospital and asked the police to use all resources to trace the missing child.
Assistant sub-inspector Rajinderpal Singh, in-charge of the Civil hospital police post, said as per patients the woman appeared to be in her early 40s and was accompanied by a four-year-old boy who had been spotted roaming around the ward since morning. The patients assumed that she had come to visit someone in the ward.
In the evening, locals spotted the accused near the hospital with the newborn and alerted the cops. The police arrested the woman and recovered the child.
The accused, a resident of Sunet village, said she was being treated at the hospital and had taken away the baby by mistake and had returned to hand over the baby to its parents.
Inspector Satpal, Division number 2 station house officer, said the woman has been changing her statements frequently.
The police are trying to figure out how the woman, who was accompanied by a four-year-old boy, managed to enter the mother-child ward on the second floor of the hospital, unnoticed by the staff.
The father of the newborn has alleged that the staff of the hospital was involved in the crime.
History of lapses
On February 11, a woman had abducted a newborn girl from the civil hospital after befriending the mother and offering to take the child for a round of the wards. The woman had been arrested seven days after the incident, and the child was also recovered.
A similar incidence was reported on September 23, 2017 when a woman posing as an employee of the Khanna civil hospital had stolen a newborn boy from the Civil Hospital in Khanna on the pretext of administering a vaccine. The accused had sent the mother of the child to get something to eat and fled with the child. Hours after the incident, the Khanna police had arrested three women and recovered the newborn.
