KARACHI, June 11: The Anti-violent Crime Unit of the police recovered on Wednesday a newborn girl, who was kidnapped from a New Karachi hospital minutes after her birth on Monday, police said.

They said the AVCU, which investigated the case, tracked down the suspected couple and recovered the newborn victim from a house in Liaquatabad.

The daughter of Mohammed Shahid was kidnapped on Monday morning after she was born in a government facility in New Karachi, and a midwife, Sadiqa, wife of Zakir Hussain, was booked and arrested on the complaint of the newborn’s father.

During preliminary interrogation, the suspect broke down and confessed to having kidnapped the child. She disclosed that she had sold the newborn to Mehwish for Rs40,000.

DSP Amir Hameed of the AVCU told Dawn that the investigators questioned the suspected midwife, who was remanded in police custody by a judicial magistrate. “Suspect Sadiqa gave a lead to Mehwish, who had purchased the baby from her,” he added.

He said the police tracked down Mehwish’s husband, who initially told police that his wife had given birth to a girl.

The DSP said Isfahan Shamim had married Mehwish one-and-a-half years ago, but they remained childless as the woman was not capable of conception.

He said the AVCU first picked up a nurse, Sarafeen Abdullah, who was an acquaintance of Mehwish’s. “Sarafeen told us that Mehwish desperately wanted a baby as she had been pretending to be pregnant to deceive her mother-in-law,” he said.

The DSP said Mehwish told Sarafeen that her matrimony would be at stake if a baby was not arranged.

He said Mehwish herself reached the hospital to take away the newborn. He said a sanitary worker, Marium, nurse Sarafeen, Sadiqa and Mehwish were booked and arrested for the kidnapping of the newborn.

Later, the recovered baby was handed over to her family at the same hospital where she was kidnapped.

The AVCU arrested on Wednesday five suspects, including a woman, in the kidnapping case of a senior banker.

AVCU SHO Inspector Irfan Ahmed told Dawn that three suspects kidnapped Ahmed Adeel, country recovery head of the ABN Amro bank, on Shaheed-i-Millat Road on June 4, when he was on his way from his PECHS house to his office in the morning.

The suspects, he said, took the victim to a flat in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, where they snatched from him his credit and debit cards and withdrew over Rs500,000 from his account.Later, the suspects released the victim in the afternoon, but they kept his car with them.

The SHO said the AVCC tracked down the suspects and arrested Mujeeb, Imran Khalid and Farhanul Haq, who had kidnapped the victim. Besides, he said a recovery officer of the bank, Aftab, and a former bank employee, Shayaan alias Shaina, were also arrested as they were also involved in the kidnapping.

A 20-year-old vagabond drug addict was stabbed to death near the Sirajia Imambargah in Kharadar.

Police arrested a suspect and seized from him the knife he had used to kill the victim.

Police said victim Pappu and suspect Mohammed Ziaul Haq were drug addicts.

The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital for autopsy and later it was kept at Edhi’s morgue as the whereabouts of the victim’s family were unknown.