5 held for dumping newborn at outer Delhi hospital

DCP said that the CCTV footage of the suspects purchasing medicine from a pharmacy near the hospital

Five months after the body of a newborn was found dumped in the toilet of a private hospital in outer Delhi’s Budh Vihar, the mother, father and three other people were arrested, said the Delhi Police on Thursday.

Police said the mother, father and three other people were arrested. (Representational image)

GS Sidhu, deputy commissioner of police (Rohini), said that the infant’s parents were in a live-in relationship and did not want to raise the child. They decided to dump the newborn boy immediately after the delivery, the officer added.

The DCP said that the CCTV footage of the suspects purchasing medicine from a pharmacy near the hospital, and an online payment made there, helped identify and arrest the five suspects.

On January 20 this year, a pregnant woman and four attendants arrived at a private hospital in Budh Vihar for delivery. When a doctor came to attend to the woman, one of the attendants told the doctor that she was in the washroom. However, soon the woman and the attendants with her disappeared, the police said.

About three hours later, the body of a newborn boy was discovered in the hospital’s toilet, following which a case under Section 318 (secretly disposing of the dead body of a child whether the child died before or after or during its birth) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered at Vijay Vihar police station.

It was a camera at a medical shop in the area from where they purchased medicines that captured the suspects’ faces. “The medical shop owner revealed the transaction details which finally helped us track down the suspects,” said the DCP.

The child’s father, as well as two other men arrested in this case, work as delivery partners.