Abandoned in the cold, moonless night

Every month police find deserted newborns, rarely alive.

ISLAMABAD: For some, life is a struggle from day one.

On a dark and moonless October night, a car, with man and a woman inside, stops besides the highway. The man comes out of the car, and looks sideways to ensure that no one is looking. He quickly drops a small bundle, wrapped in a blanket, on the greenbelt and hastens back to his car, before driving off.

Come morning, the cries of the newborn inside the bundle, if it miraculously survives the harsh night, attracts the attention of a passerby and ends up with the police.

No one knows for sure how it exactly happens, but this is how people get rid of an illegitimate child, according to the police.

This last Thursday, the city police found one such three-day-old baby boy from a greenbelt, who had survived the long chilly night out on the grass under the open sky. In most cases, such children do not survive. Police only find their bodies.

This particular baby was shifted to the Child Care Centre in Benazir Bhutto Hospital Rawalpindi. There he is waiting for a team from Gehwara — a public-sector humanitarian organisation for abandoned children under five — to come fetch him.

He will live at Gehwara until the city administration finds him a new home.

“We only provide such babies medical support and then arrange for them to be taken to Gehwara as soon as possible,” said Dr Shabir Ahmed, a spokesperson for the hospital.

Before the baby is shifted to the shelter, the information is passed on to the relevant Assistant Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner (DC). In this case it was DC Islamalabad Amir Ali Ahmed.

DC Ahmed would soon form a committee to find a suitable home for the baby, according to the city administration’s spokesperson Muhammad Khalid. “We advertise in newspapers and believe me childless couples flock to get the baby,” Khalid added.

The spokesperson added that the administration takes all possible precautions before handing the baby over to its new parents. Narrating the story of another newborn baby discovered about two months back, Khalid said that Assistant Commissioner Asim Ayub had interviewed the prospective parents himself before they were handed over the custody of the child.

For such babies, life begins with an irony. Their original parents hasten to get rid of them, while others adopt them with unrestrained excitement.

“The law says these people [who abandon their children] should be traced and punished. The police are responsible for finding the culprits,” said Sarfraz Bosal, a criminal lawyer.

Bosal said such people commit two crimes. First, they disown their “illegitimate” child, then, they leave him/her to die, which constitutes an attempted murder. “If found guilty, the suspect can be sentenced to 14 years in prison, if not life imprisonment,” he added.

However, police say, it is almost impossible to trace the culprits in such cases.

The Bhara Kahu and Shehzad Town police find abandoned newborns almost every month. But they do not have a way to track down their parents.

“There is definitely a penalty for such people, however, there is no mechanism available through which we can nab people who commit these brutalities,” said Superintendent of Police City Haroon Joyia.

One cannot help but wonder if it is easy for a mother to abandon her own baby.

But she might not have a choice, police say, or else she might have to face the moral and social policing of the society. For most such mothers the decision to keep their fatherless child is tantamount to risking their lives.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th,2010.