KARACHI, March 1: A newborn baby was kidnapped from the gynaecology ward of the Civil Hospital Karachi on Tuesday allegedly by a woman who passed herself off as a staff member of the government-run health facility.

The incident was reported in the first half of the day when the worried parents of the baby boy first approached the CHK administration and then the Eidgah police station to lodge an FIR.

“The boy was born to Jamila after a Caesarean section in the early hours of Tuesday,” said Eidgah SHO Nawaz Gondal.

“The mother and the newborn were shifted to the gynaecology ward on the first floor, where a woman posing as a member of the staff came early in the morning and took away the child ostensibly for vaccination.”

He said that the parents of the child and their only relative in the hospital felt a growing sense of alarm when the woman did not return after nearly an hour.

The area SHO said that the child’s father, Ghulam Farid, first conveyed his concern to the hospital staff who initially behaved as though they couldn’t care less but took notice of the incident when he lost his temper.

They then brought the matter into the knowledge of the police.

A case (FIR 80/2011) was registered under Section 364-A (kidnapping of the person under the age of 10) of the Pakistan Penal Code against the identified woman at the Eidgah police station.

The SHO said that although the police cordoned off the area after receiving the complaint, they believed that the suspect woman had already left the hospital along with the kidnapped child.

The couple, who hail from Larkana and are settled in Hub due to Ghulam Farid’s job, tied the knot only a year ago. The police said though Jamila married her maternal cousin of her freewill, it appeared that the kidnapping of their child had no link with a family feud.

Accusing the hospital administration of not disciplining the visitors inside the health facility, police authorities alleged that the incident occurred due to the negligence and weak control of the CHK management.

“Although the police are present around the CHK round the clock to counter any emergency, we cannot regulate visitors inside the hospital in normal days,” said SP Qamar Raza Jaskani of the City Town.

However, CHK’s Additional Medical Superintendent Liaquat Ali insisted that the unfortunate incident could not be attributed to any lapse on the part of security or ward staff of the hospital.

He told Dawn that it was not possible to check or ‘interrogate’ patients and attendants, particularly the female ones in the gynaecology ward.

Shifting the blame on to the grief-stricken parents, he said that in the first instance the male attendant with the mother should not have allowed an unknown woman to take their newborn baby away for vaccination.

He added that besides the police investigation, an internal inquiry to be conducted by the steering committee of the hospital was also on the cards.