Stolen newborn reunited with parents

Four days after a baby was stolen from Rangpur Medical College Hospital, police rescued him yesterday from a woman living in an abandoned building on hospital compound.

The woman said she stole the boy and wanted to adopt him, but police said they would interrogate her to know if there was a gang involved.

The baby was born in the early hours of Wednesday to Sudha Rani, 21, and Poresh Chandra Roy, a farm worker from Nilphamari sadar upazila. It was their firstborn.

Two hours after his birth through a c-section, doctors sent the mother to the post-operative ward. Sudha's aunt Laxmi Rani kept the baby and fell asleep. When she woke up around 5:00am, the baby was gone.

Later, the Rangpur Metropolitan Police (RMP) collected the CCTV footage of the hospital and saw a woman making away with the newborn. With the help of detectives, they rescued him and handed him over to the mother around 4:30pm yesterday.

It was the first time Sudha held her child.

Police arrested the woman, Yasmin Sultana Munni, 32, the abandoned wife of Faruk Mia, a shop owner in Aditmari upazila of Lalmonirhat. She lives with another woman in an abandoned building on the hospital premises.

At a press briefing at the RMP headquarters, RMP Commissioner Muhammad Abdul Alim Mahmud said, “We need to interrogate the woman to verify whether it was a case of stealing or there was a gang behind it.”

The couple broke down in tears after getting back their son, and expressed their gratitude to police.