A woman allegedly abducted a three-day-old baby on Sunday from inside the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital in Bengaluru. The mother is said to have handed the infant to the woman to play with him.
The baby -- belonging to Syed Habib, a mutton shop employee, and his wife Farida Mujib, a homemaker -- has been missing since 12.30 pm on Sunday (4 October), according to news reports.
The newborn baby boy was immediately shifted to NICU on Thursday (1 October 1) right after he was born at 4 pm due to some breathing problems, according to The Times of India.
On Sunday, the infant was given to his mother at around 10.30 am for breastfeeding. While Farida fed her son inside the feeding room right next to NICU, a burqa-clad woman sat beside her and began to play with the baby.
Post-feeding, Farida handed her baby to the woman and urged her to play with him for a while as she went to another room. But the moment she came back, both the woman and the baby were gone, reported Bangalore Mirror.
A newborn stolen by a burqa-clad woman from Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital in Bengaluru. Baby born to Farida on Oct 1 pic.twitter.com/VDHgJs3Vzt
— T S Sudhir (@Iamtssudhir) October 5, 2015
Farida ran out looking for her son, but failed to find him. She called her sister-in-law Salma, who was at the pharmacy. Salma walked past the abductor on her way to Farida, but failed to realise that her nephew was with the woman. She said that she was "in a hurry" so she "barely noticed" the woman because she hid the baby in the burqa.
One of the doctors who was on duty said that CCTV cameras captured the abductor's face and a case has been filed under Section 363 of the IPC.
DCP (east) N Satheesh said that they have captured an image of a man talking to the woman at the entrance of the hospital before she went inside to abduct the new-born baby. He added that they have formed five teams to investigate the abduction and "are not leaving any stone unturned."
The woman who was captured on the CCTV cameras has been detained and the police is said to be interrogating her. Additionally, they have picked up another woman in relation to the abduction as well.