Necessity is the mother of invention. In Sobia Saleem’s case she faced the necessity, someone else was the mother and a scheme was invented. Thus, the third-year trainee nurse kidnapped a baby the day after he was born and sold him to a woman who wanted a son and was willing to buy one for Rs40,000.
The 20-year-old Saleem was arrested from Model Colony, Malir, with the couple she sold the infant to on Sunday. “My father is dead and my mother is bed-ridden. I am the only one who runs the house,” she said. “I did what I had to run house expenses and get married.”
The investigation officer, SI Zahoor Bhatti, said that they traced Saleem’s movements for two days before they arrested her and handed her over to the women police in Saddar. He suspected that more people are involved.
Saleem confessed and the police have registered a case against her but they suspect she may have been involved in more.
According to Saleem, she needed the money to run her home and get married. Although she hid herself in the bathroom of the police station, she still answered a few questions from the inside. According to her, she did it to make ends meet and get married to her fiancé, who is also a student and used to work at the NICH as well.
The woman who bought the baby, Farzana, said that she did not know that he was someone else’s. According to her, she met Saleem at a private hospital in Malir where she worked in the evenings.
Farzana is a mother of two daughters and her husband, Akbar Awan, is a property dealer. She said that she couldn’t conceive a son and her husband threatened to leave her if she didn’t give birth to one. “Whenever I get pregnant there is some complication and I have to get an abortion,” she said. “Sobia told me that she works at Jinnah hospital and has given a home to many orphan babies. I thought that if I adopted an orphan, it would solve my problem and give the child a home. “ However, Farzana kept this from her husband because if he found out he would have turned her out of the house.
The parents of the baby were naturally overjoyed to see their child again after an agony that began on November 4.
Rahib Ali, the father, kept shouting “Police zindabad!” and “I found a new life.” He said that he and his wife had lost hope of ever seeing their child again. “But God is great for getting us our baby back through the police.”
The head of the NICH, Dr Jamal Raza, was unavailable for comment when The Express Tribune contacted him. But according to the staff, this was an individual incident and Saleem was suspended. Strict regulations are being developed to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2011.
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