AMRITSAR, May 20: An Indian couple whose newborn son was swapped for a baby girl and sold seven years ago has regained custody of the child, their lawyer said on Sunday, after a long and complicated court trial.
“After a gap of seven years the biological parents of Amarpartap Singh were able to get custody of their son after a DNA test,” lawyer V.P. Singh Bhatia said.
The swap came to light in 2003, after a midwife was arrested for stealing a male child born at her private nursing home in India’s northern Punjab state.
The midwife told police that she had swapped a boy born to a Hindu woman in her nursing home for a newborn girl abandoned by an unwed mother, and sold the male child to a Sikh couple.
After the midwife’s confession, the court ordered DNA tests for both the couples and their children.
Last year, the court sentenced the Sikh couple to seven years in jail, but a higher court overturned the sentence this month after the two couples reached a compromise.—AFP
