Newborn goes missing from Vani Vilas Hospital

Footage shows the gate open with no security

Babies going missing seems to be the norm at the City’s Vani Vilas Hospital. Friday saw another such incident, that too, in broad daylight.

According to a complaint lodged with Victoria Hospital police station, by Devanahalli-based couple Manju V and Vasantha, their newborn baby boy was spirited away by a woman.

The station in-charge police inspector Siddappa, said, while the investigation was on, due to lack of clarity of the CCTV footages, the woman who allegedly stole the baby, has not been identified.

The mother, whose son has gone missing, has been admitted to a special ward at the hospital after her health condition deteriorated.

In their complaint, the couple have stated that following the delivery of the baby at 3.15 am, both mother and her child, were shifted to the ward. While the child’s mother was asleep, the woman’s mother was awake.

A woman, in her 40s, identifying herself as the aunt of another woman, after sending the child’s grandmother to bring tea by handing a Rs 500 note, made away with the child during her absence. The grandmother, on finding only her daughter Vasantha asleep but not the baby, alerted the father, following which a search was launched without success.

Lack of security

It is understood that the woman escaped from the hospital premises through a back gate meant for the movement of vehicles carrying medicines and other material for the hospital stores.

“It was clear from the CCTV footage that the gate was open and there was no security at the gate,” the police officer in charge of the investigation said. While the hospital management remained mum, a senior doctor, on condition of anonymity, said the hospital did lack proper security measures.

The case of missing newborn babies from Vani Vilas Hospital dates back to September 2010, when the baby of Chandra Layout resident Lalithamma had gone missing.

Previously too a newborn daughter of Mahadeva Swamy, salesman, and his wife Jayalakshmi went missing from the same hospital in August 2008.