Woman caught on CCTV footage stealing newborn

A baby boy, who was stolen a few hours after his birth at Rangpur Medical College Hospital, could not be rescued in the last two days.

Police said they need more time.

However, law enforcers saw a woman in the hospital's CCTV footage stealing the baby.

He was the first child of Sudha Rani, 21, and Poresh Chandra Roy, a farm worker from the sadar upazila of Nilphamari.

The mother was admitted on Tuesday following complications. Doctors delivered a boy in early hours the next day, through a c-section.

Family members said the mother was sent to the post-operative ward following the surgery while the newborn was handed over to Sudha's aunt, Laxmi Rani.

Laxmi kept the boy by her side at the corridor of the labour ward on level 3, and fell asleep. When she woke up around 5:00am, the boy was gone.

Meanwhile, the mother broke down in tears upon hearing of the stealing. “I haven't seen my son whom I had carried in the womb for 10 months,” Sudha wailed at the hospital bed. She pleaded for quick rescue of her child.

Ajoy Kumar Roy, director of the hospital, filed a general diary with Kotwali Police Station on the same day over the incident.

Police collected CCTV footage of the hospital where a woman was seen picking up the boy and making away through the back door of the hospital, said OC Rezaul Karim of Kotwali Police Station.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Sudha's aunt Laxmi said she saw the woman roaming around the labour ward from the very first day. “I asked her several times why she was there?” she said. The woman replied that she had a patient on level 4 but she was staying on level 3 since “the upper floor was dirty”.

“The woman disappeared when the boy went missing,” she said.

Laxmi identified the woman in the footage.

Meanwhile, police picked up a woman in connection with the stealing and called Laxmi to the police station, but Laxmi said it was not the same woman seen in the footage.

The OC said search was underway to rescue the boy. “We need more time,” he said.

A two-member probe body has been formed by the hospital authorities with paediatric surgeon Dr Shamim Ahmed as head. The committee was asked to submit their report by seven working days.