Abducted newborn sold for Tk2,000 in Narsingdi rescued

Published at 02:45 pm May 11th, 2021

Sumaiya Akter, with her newborn in her arms, stands beside her mother Poribanu alongside some policemen in Narsingdi, Monday, May 11, 2021 Dhaka Tribune

Police yet to identify the perpetrator

Police have recovered a newborn baby which was abducted and later sold by an unidentified woman in Narsingdi.

Speaking to Dhaka Tribune, Narsingdi police station OC Biplab Kumar Dutta said the baby’s maternal grandmother had filed a case in this connection on Monday morning.

According to the case statement, the baby was born to one Sumaiya Akter at a private hospital in Narsingdi on Friday.

On Sunday, the baby’s maternal grandmother Poribanu brought it to Narsingdi General Hospital as it had caught a cold soon after birth. When Poribanu handed her grandchild to an unknown woman she had met there to go and check if she could skip the queue, the woman ran off with the child.

CCTV footage showed a woman carrying a baby in her arms and leaving the hospital in a CNG-run auto rickshaw.

When news of the abduction of the newborn spread on social media, the driver of the auto rickshaw in question saw the post on Facebook and contacted Narsingdi police.

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Acting on the information provided by the driver, police recovered the newborn baby from one Lipika Malakar, the woman to whom the child was sold for Tk2,000, at around 2am on Monday.

Lipika told police during interrogation that she, a mother of two daughters and pregnant again, had bought the newborn, a baby boy, as she had always longed for a son due to familial and societal pressure.

She and the unidentified woman had discussed the matter a few days earlier at a local temple and she later received the newborn boy on Sunday noon.

The unknown woman had told her that the child’s mother was of unsound mind and had abandoned it, Lipika claimed.

Narsingdi police station OC Biplab said attempts were being made to identify and arrest the woman in question.

Meanwhile, expressing her gratitude to the police, the baby’s grandmother Poribanu said: “I have been scarred for life. But I got my grandson back, so that is enough … My daughter’s family is saved.”