Feared kidnapped: Sick baby disappears from NICH nursery

Police question hospital staff.

KARACHI: The authorities believe that a hospital insider was involved in the kidnapping of a newborn baby boy on Friday. Although no arrests were made, the police detained staff members of the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) nursery for further investigations.

The baby was born to Izzat Bibi and her husband Rahib Ali at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). He was taken to the NICH because he was having trouble breathing. Ali claimed that the doctors and nursery staff members had kidnapped his child. “After they took him to NICH only the staff members were allowed to go inside,” he said. “Please give my child back to me.”

According to the baby’s father, the kidnapping took place in the five minutes that no one was waiting outside the nursery. “My cousin who had been standing outside, left to attend a call for five minutes and when she came back the baby was not there,” he said. “We started asking them what happened, at first they did not listen to us but later they told us that my son had been kidnapped.”

Ali registered a FIR against the doctors but did not nominate anyone. SHO Tasawwar Ameer said that it would have been very easy for the police to carry out the investigation had CCTV cameras been installed in the hospital.

NICH Director Dr Jamal Raza told The Express Tribune that the administration was cooperating with the police and that the baby would be found soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th,  2011.