The Gandhinagar police in Kottayam on Thursday rescued a newborn baby who was kidnapped from the maternity ward of the Government Medical College here within a couple of hours of its abduction. A woman, identified as Neethu of Kalamassery, Ernakulam, was arrested in connection with the incident.
The incident took place around 3 p.m. when the accused woman, pretending to be a nursing staff at the hospital, abducted the two-day-old baby from its mother, Aswathy, of Vandiperiyar, on the pretext of taking the infant for a medical check-up.
As the baby was not returned even after 30 minutes, the mother approached the hospital authorities. On finding that none of the nurses on duty had collected her baby, the mother raised an alarm. Upon receiving an alert from the hospital authorities, a police team reached the spot and soon sealed the entire location before launching a massive search operation.
About an hour later, an autorickshaw driver spotted an unidentified woman with the infant at a location near the hospital. As he tried to intercept, the woman fled towards a nearby hotel. A police team soon reached the spot and took her into custody. The baby was soon handed over to its mother, who broke into tears and thanked the police.
Monetary gain
During an interrogation, the accused admitted that she had kidnapped the baby for monetary gain. Preliminary interrogations revealed that the woman had reached Gandhinagar a day ago and was staying at a hotel nearby along with her eight-year-old son.
The accused was set to be produced before a magistrate later in the day.
