In a shocking incident, a newborn was reportedly stolen from Bihar’s Begusarai Sadar Hospital 20 hours after birth on Sunday. The incident going viral on social media was caught on CCTV.
In the CCTV footage, a woman in her fifties wearing a red saree enters the government-run hospital's Special Newborn Care Unit (NSCU). Moments later, the woman picks up the baby boy, wraps him in a cloth, and then leaves the NSCU.
An hospital insider's hand can not be ruled out in the incident as the woman was seen taking instruction from someone who is not visible in the footage.
According to NDTV, a baby was born to Nandini Devi, a resident of Lohia Nagar in Begusarai at 10:30 PM on Saturday. The family found the newborn baby missing after they reached the hospital on Sunday at 7 pm and were alerted by the mother that the baby was not being handed over to her by the nurse. The report said the father of the missing baby last saw his son around 2 PM.
Dr. Pramod Kumar Singh, Civil Surgeon Begusarai Sadar Hospital acknowledged the gravity of the situation.
“A lot of people enter the premises, which makes it hard to identify and distinguish the child’s mother from other relatives,” NDTV quoted Dr. Singh as saying.
None of the hospital staff could provide clarity on how the baby boy went missing from the childcare unit. It was only known that the child had been stolen when the authorities checked the CCTV footage.
The incident has caused unrest within the hospital, with the family demanding the immediate return of their child and expressing frustration over the apparent security lapse.
According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, one child goes missing in the country every eight minutes and 40% of these children are never found.
