Rajiv.Kalkod@timesofindia.com / Nov 27, 2024, 23:55 IST
Bengaluru/Kalaburagi: In an unexpected and emotional turn of events, a family in Kalaburagi city expressed their profound gratitude to police in a gesture rarely seen in today's world—by falling at their feet! This heartfelt tribute came after the successful rescue of their newborn son, who had been stolen from the hospital just hours after birth and sold for Rs 50,000.
The drama unfolded on Monday afternoon when two women, posing as nurses, abducted the infant from the Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS). The family was devastated and mother R Kasturi could not even breastfeed her newborn before he was taken. "We were in shock; we couldn't understand what had happened. My baby was gone, and I had barely held him," she said, tears welling up.
Kalaburagi police, who were baffled by the turn of events, reassured the family that they would find the baby within 48 hours. When the team led by police commissioner SD Sharanappa placed the infant in Kasturi's lap, she and her family were overwhelmed with gratitude and bowed before the officers. "They are nothing short of gods to us," Kasturi said, holding her baby close.
A resident of Chittapur and wife of electrician S Ramakrishna, Kasturi had delivered her second son around 4am on Monday. Around 2.30pm, two women dressed like staff nurses came near Kasturi's bed, asking whether the blood of her child was tested or not. When Kasturi replied in negative, one of them took the baby, said they would take him for the test and walked away. A female attendant, who was with Kasturi, too went with them.
"By then, one woman asked the attendant whether she had brought Kasturi's hospital card. The attendant went back to collect it. When she returned, the women and the baby were not to be found," Kasturi's husband S Ramakrishna said. The husband and their relatives searched for the baby and the imposters for nearly an hour before alerting police at 6.30pm.
"We knew we had to race against time. We started collecting CCTV footage from all possible angles. We found that the two women had boarded an autorickshaw. But after travelling some distance, they got down and disappeared. We were clueless again," Sharanappa said.
Meanwhile, three police teams were formed: One, to interact with all the autorickshaw drivers; second, to visit railway station, bus stand and other places; third team to work on technical aspects like looking for more CCTV footage. Initially, police suspected the woman to have left for Hyderabad, the nearest city. But the technical team opined that the women had not left Kalaburagi city. "By Tuesday evening, we received some concrete information on a woman, who was looking for a male child. Our women police watched her and found that there was something amiss; we picked her up for questioning," Sharanappa said.
Initially, the woman did not spill the beans. However, when police asked her why she was searching for a just-born male child by visiting the hospital, she confessed and took the cops to a nearby house where two other women were with the baby. The house was at a distance of around five kilometres from the hospital. "We did not wait for a moment; wrapping the infant in a warm cloth, we rushed back to hospital and handed over the child. We knew that the child was not fed properly for nearly 30 hours," he said.
The three women—Umera Sheik, 30, A Nasreen Banu, 32, and Fatima Sheik, 35, residents of MSK Mill and working as domestic helpers, have been arrested. Umera Sheik had taken Rs 50,000 from a person, promising them to get him a just-born male child. Accordingly, she took the help of the two others in kidnapping the infant. To avoid police, one of them changed the dress inside the hospital bathroom, after abducting the child. Another, who had covered her face and shoulder with a white cloth, changed dress while sitting in an auto," police said.
The police commissioner told TOI that it was an emotional moment for him and he felt happy for being a cop. "The happiness in the mother's face on getting back her child was unexplainable; for me, this is one of the unforgettable moments in my career," Sharanappa said.