'Stillborn' Indian infant comes alive just before burial

A baby declared stillborn by Indian doctors started to move his limbs and cry just before his father was to bury him, the infant's uncle said yesterday.

Doctors at a leading city hospital had told rickshaw driver Rakesh Babbar that his wife had given birth to a stillborn baby Friday.

"Rakesh had taken the child to the burial ground where they removed bandages from his face for the rites. Then the baby started crying," the child's uncle Ashok Kumar Vohra told AFP.

"The family is now very happy."

He said the family had filed a charges against Safdarjung Hospital which had set up a panel to investigate the lapse.

Authorities at the government hospital declined to comment.

Vohra said the staff had handed over the child to the father, all wrapped up in clothes and bearing a tag that declared it stillborn.

He said the baby was born prematurely after seven months and was now in an intensive care unit at the hospital.