Newborn girl abducted from Jayanagar General Hospital ICU

Gave baby to a man who claimed to be its relative, says nurse

An unidentified man abducted a five-day-old baby girl from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the state-run Jayanagar General Hospital in Jayanagar 4th Block on Friday. The police and the baby’s parents suspect involvement of the hospital staff in the abduction. The police have detained three nurses, Thippamma, Radha and Nalinakshi, for the questioning. Efforts are on to trace the baby.

“We have registered a case under IPC Section 363 (kidnapping). A man pretended to be the relative of the newborn and took away the baby. The CCTV footage is not clear enough to establish his identity. The police are investigating,” DCP (Southeast) Dr M B Boralingaiah said. The newborn’s parents U J Thyagaraja, a cab driver, and Sahanashree, a homemaker, are residents of Bannerghatta. Sahanashree was admitted to the hospital on January 28 and she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl on January 29.

“The doctors told us that the baby girl was suffering from jaundice and required treatment. The baby was kept in the ICU. Sahanashree would go to the ICU once in two hours, take the baby out for feeding and later give it back to the nurses in the ICU, ” Swamy, a relative of Thyagaraja told DH.

She breastfed the baby and handed it over to nurses around 12 noon. Nurse Thippamma asked Sahanashree to collect the baby for feeding after two hours. However, the baby was missing from the ICU when Sahanashree went there around 2 pm. When questioned, Thippamma told Thyagaraja that a man came to the ICU and introduced himself as a relative of the baby. He took the baby and went away, she claimed.

Thyagaraja said Sahanashree’s mother had instructed the nurses not to give the baby to anyone other than its parents. After Thyagaraja lodged a complaint against the hospital staff, the police obtained CCTV footage which showed Thippamma handing over the baby to a man. Swamy said that a stranger had been following Thyagaraja ever since Sahanashree was hospitalised. He suspects the involvement of the stranger and nurses in the abduction.