The baby's mother Fareeda expressed suspicion that the woman who befriended her at the hospital might have taken away her child.
Published Sep 16, 2023 | 9:18 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 16, 2023 | 9:18 PM
The baby was allegedly stolen from the hospital on Thursday. (Creative Commons)
The police are yet to trace a six-month-old child — two days after he was allegedly kidnapped from the Niloufer Hospital in Hyderabad.
The child’s mother, Fareeda Begum, 24, had reportedly told the police that a woman who befriended her at the hospital might have taken away the baby around 6.30 pm on Thursday, 14 September.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (Saidabad Division) Sanjay Kumar Rayakur said efforts were on to reunite the baby with its parents at the earliest.
“It has been two days since the baby had gone missing. We have deployed our teams and have found strong leads. We will do our best to protect the baby,” he told South First.
Meanwhile, the Station House Officer at Nampally, Begari Abhilash, said the CCTV visuals were of not much help. “Since the incident happened in the evening, CCTV footage seems problematic to figure out the individuals,” he told South First.
“We are tracking each movement to identify the woman who ran away with the child. We registered a case under Section 365 (Kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) of the Indian Penal Code,” he added.
The First Information Report (FIR) said Fareeda, wife of Salman Khan living on Gandipet X Road in Rangareddy district went to the hospital with her two children, aged four, and six months old. She had gone to Niloufer to get treatment for her older son. Fareeda’s mother, too, was with them.
While the older woman took the boy to the doctor, Fareeda waited outside with the infant. Meanwhile, another woman befriended her. The unidentified woman told Fareeda that she had brought her two-month-old baby to an ophthalmologist.
Around 6.30 pm, Fareeda fed her baby. Even as the baby dozed off, she noticed a food vehicle outside. She put the baby down and went to get food, and on returning after 10 minutes, found the child as well as the unidentified woman missing.
On enquiring, others said that the other woman had gone with the baby.
In her statement to the police, Fareeda described the woman to be around 30-35 years of age, fair complexioned, normally built with a long face, and with a scar or a burn mark on her right arm.
She was wearing a chocolate-coloured nightie and had a yellow scarf around her head.
The woman seemed to be unwell, the mother told the police.
A senior official at Niloufer said the surveillance cameras were not functioning properly. He urged the government to beef up the security at the hospital.
