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‘Mystery’ man kidnaps 5-day-old boy from Panchkula civil hospital
Having registered a case, Panchkula police have launched a manhunt to trace the kidnapper and rescue the newborn
A mystery man kidnapped a five-day-old baby from the Panchkula civil hospital after deceiving his parents with offers of “support and guidance” through hospital procedures, police said on Friday.
Having registered a case, Panchkula police have launched a manhunt to trace the kidnapper and rescue the newborn. Police were alerted by the infant’s parents who live in Pipliwala Town in Manimajra and hail from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
The infant’s mother, Suman, narrated that she had delivered a baby on February 15. On February 19, she and her husband brought their five-day-old son to the civil hospital in Manimajra, Chandigarh, for a medical check-up.
The doctor on duty diagnosed her son with jaundice and advised hospital admission for recovery. Adhering to doctor’s advice, she got her son admitted. After a while, she had to visit the hospital’s second floor, where an unidentified man stopped her.
He “informed” her that her baby’s condition had worsened and he had been referred to the Panchkula civil hospital in Sector 6 by the attending doctor. Offering “guidance”, he said he will accompany them to the hospital.
Suman said she, along with her husband and baby, took an auto-rickshaw with the unidentified man to the Panchkula civil hospital.
On arriving there, the man asked her husband to wait downstairs, and offered to take her and her infant to the second floor of the hospital for treatment.
There, he told her that the doctor’s room was on the third floor. Asking her to wait on the second floor, he took the infant with him to the third floor.
After he didn’t return for long, Suman said she grew worried and started looking for the man, but in vain.
She and her husband also approached the hospital staff, who confirmed that the infant had not been admitted in the hospital. Distraught, they returned to the Manimajra hospital, where staff shared they never referred their son to another hospital.
Realising that their son was missing, the couple reached the Sector-6 police post with a complaint.
Subsequently, a case under Sections 137 (kidnapping) and 140(3) (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder or for ransom, etc.) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) was registered at the Sector-7 police station.
If proven, Section 137 entails a jail term up to seven years and Section 140 (3) may lead to imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment up to 10 years, along with fine.
The station house officer (SHO) of the Sector 7 police station remained unavailable for comment. The phone number given for the Sector 6 police post in-charge on the Panchkula police website was temporarily out of service.
