Baby lifted from city hospital traced after 19 mths in Tirupur

MADURAI: A new born baby, which went missing from the maternity ward of the Government Rajaji Hospital here on June 15, 2013, had been traced, the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) on Tuesday told the Madurai bench of the Madras high court.
Making the submission during the hearing of a habeas corpus petition filed by the mother of the baby, CB-CID said the child will be produced before the judicial magistrate for a DNA test and sought time to file the report.
Following this, justice A Selvam and justice T Mathivanan adjourned the matter to February 20 to enable the CB-CID file its final report.
The two-day old infant was allegedly taken away when its mother was still in a semi-conscious state while the woman’s mother who was attending her was away to buy something. After a detailed investigation, the CB-CID police, which was entrusted with the task of investigating the case, secured the stolen baby from Tirupur.
As the Madurai city police, which, initially registered a case and conducted investigations could not trace the baby even after a prolonged probe the 21-year-old mother of the baby, Meenakshi, wife of Dinakaran of Bommapatti village in the district moved the Madurai bench of the Madras high court. However, the city police could not trace it even after intensified investigation. The court, which was not satisfied with the local police’s investigation entrusted the same to the CB-CID. The CB-CID, too, had not showed much development in the case, which resulted in the court coming down heavily on it in many occasions.
In this backdrop, the sleuths who traced the presence of the baby in Tirupur recovered him. The same was informed to the court on Tuesday.
The child was lifted when Meenakshi after C-Section surgery was recovering in the hospital. A woman who approached her identifying herself as a close friend of her relatives allegedly took the child away stating that the relatives want to have a look at the infant. An unassuming Meenakshi believed the woman’s words as she managed to spell a few of her relatives’ names.
The incident brought to light the lack of security features in the post-natal ward in the obstetrics and gynaecology department in GRH. Even the CCTV camera set up in the ward could not show the woman’s clear image due to poor quality. The incident came in as a wakeup call and as a result of which CCTV cameras were replaced. A large number of security personnel were deployed in the ward after the incident.