Taken: Newborn baby stolen from PIMS

The baby boy was taken from the general ward by an unidentified woman; hospital blames parents.

ISLAMABAD:

A newborn baby was allegedly abducted from Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).

Talking to The Express Tribune, Ghulam Habib, the investigating officer assigned to the case by the Margalla police, said Saifur Rehman, father of the day-old boy, has lodged a first information report against unknown persons for kidnapping his son.

According to the FIR, Rehman’s wife Saira Bibi was admitted in Pims on October 25 and gave birth to a baby boy on October 30 after C-section. She was shifted to a bed in the general ward, where an unidentified woman tried to mingle with the family and offered to help tend to the baby for no obvious reason.

On Friday morning at around 7:30, the woman escaped with the baby. No one knows who she was and where she has taken him.

Meanwhile, Pims Spokesperson Dr Ayesha Ehsani said that the hospital administration strongly condemns this incident. “However it is the mistake of the family who trusted a stranger and gave their baby to them,” she said.

The hospital has constituted a four-member committee to probe the abduction, she said.

According to hospital sources, it was the couple’s fourth child. The family hails from Abbotabad but currently resides in Bhara Kahu, on the capital’s outskirts.

The sources added that there are no CCTV cameras installed in the ward and the security there is also unsatisfactory.

Security has always been an issue at the hospital complex, with major and minor breaches regularly reported. Recently, a number of cars were reportedly getting stolen from the hospital’s parking lot. Now, it is children.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2013.