KARACHI: A judicial magistrate on Tuesday remanded two nurses in police custody in a case pertaining to the kidnapping of a newborn baby from a private hospital.

Reenum and Shirina were booked and arrested over their alleged involvement in the abduction of the infant from Ahmed Medical Complex in Federal B. Area on Sunday.

On Tuesday, the investigating officer (IO) produced them before the judicial magistrate (Central) to seek their physical remand in police custody for interrogation and investigation.

The IO informed that according to complainant Aslam, his wife gave birth to a son at the private health facility on April 17. A woman clad in burqa and another in doctor’s uniform visited the Room No 207 at 4am when his wife and mother-in-law were asleep. They informed them that the child was suffering from fever and needed to be shifted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). But when the family visited the special ward, they came to know that their baby was missing, he added.

The IO requested the magistrate to grant 14-day physical remand of the suspects in police custody. However, turning down the IO’s request, the magistrate granted him physical custody of the suspects for two days.

On the other hand, the suspects filed an application seeking grant of post-arrest bail to them.

Advocate Jameel Virk argued that the applicant Reenum was attending a prayer service in the area church when the alleged incident had taken place.

He further argued that the police had already taken into custody CCTV footage of the hospital as well as call record data (CDR), which failed to connect the suspects with the alleged offence.

A case was registered under Section 364-A (kidnapping) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC) on the complaint of newborn’s father Aslam.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2022