LAHORE: The Badami Bagh police arrested a young man on Tuesday who disinterred the body of a newborn baby from a local graveyard ‘to use it for begging maximum money’.

The suspect was caught by the family of the deceased baby at Usman Chowk near Khokhar Road where he was begging for the ‘ailing son’.

Identified as Illyas, of Farrukh Abad, Shahdara, the suspect said he disinterred the body early on Tuesday.

The Badami Bagh station house officer (SHO) said local resident Shujat Hussain’s newborn baby died a few hours after his birth at a hospital on Monday. He along with his relatives buried him at the graveyard the same day. As the parents visited the graveyard on Tuesday morning, they found the grave dug up and the body missing.

They questioned the gravedigger and other people around, who told them about the young man’s presence in the graveyard, the police official. Soon the family saw the suspect with the body of the baby on the road.

They caught Ilyas after they recognised the baby, and alerted the police. The SHO said the suspect was a drug addict.The police handed over the body to the family and lodged an FIR against the accused, sending him behind bars.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2019