Family still awaits stolen baby at DMCH

Once again, the family of a three-month-old girl, who was stolen from Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on September 22, has returned to the hospital and started to wait anxiously for the last one week for her rescue.

“I just want my daughter back. I will keep on waiting no matter how long it takes,” said Nasima Begum, mother of the child, hailing from Shibchar upazila of Madaripur.

The woman and her three daughters left the hospital after staying there for more than two months with her husband Bahadur Dhali who was admitted for a brain tumour.

But Bahadur, his wife Nasima and Bahadur's father returned on October 29. This time they are staying in the corridor of the hospital's first floor. Nasima said they came back for her husband's check-up but most importantly to find her daughter.

On September 22, a woman introducing herself as an attendant of an expecting mother stole the baby girl, she said.

Bahadur underwent a surgery in early September and was released, but the family refused to leave after the baby was stolen.

Nasima, 28, said the woman, clad in burqa and aged about 35 to 40, went to the family at the corridor of the neurosurgery ward and exchanged pleasantries. She said her name was Khadiza, said Nasima.

Later she tricked Nasima's eldest daughter Shorna, 10, when Nasima was sleeping, out of the hospital and fled with the baby.

“I came to the hospital for my husband's treatment and lost my baby girl,” Nasima told this correspondent yesterday at DMCH corridor.

She said she has been requesting people to help her finding the baby but not getting much help. “I even went to see a two-month-old baby at Shibpur in Madaripur district who was said to be brought from Dhaka,” she said.

“I will be able to recognise my child by her birth marks even if I see her when she has grown up,” she said in an emotion-choked voice.

Nasima filed a case with Shahbagh Police Station after the baby went missing.

Officer-in-Charge of Shahbagh Police Station Abu Bakar Siddique told this correspondent that they were yet to find the baby. “The other law enforcing agencies are also working to rescue the baby.”

DMCH formed a three-member body to probe whether any employee of the hospital was involved in the stealing, said DMCH Deputy Director Khawaza Abdul Gafur.

Hospital sources said they had provided the investigators video footage of CCTV cameras, in which Nasima identified the woman.