3 years after hospital switched her newborn, woman reunited with son

BARPETA (Assam): In a bizarre incident in Assam's Barpeta district, three years after a hospital switched her newborn, a woman was finally able to unite with her son following a court directive.

Three years back, two pregnant women were admitted to a government-run hospital in Assam's Barpeta district where they gave birth to two babies, but one of the infants was stillborn.

In a mix-up, the hospital handed over the living baby to another woman instead of the actual mother due to the similarity in their names.

Following the court's directive, as per the DNA report, the original mother has been able to get her baby after three years.

According to the reports, on May 3, 2019, Nazma Khanam, a pregnant woman from Barpeta, gave birth to a son at the government-run hospital.

The woman was admitted to the ICU after the birth of the baby, the infant was admitted to the child care room and a few hours later the hospital staff handed over a dead body of an infant to Nazma Khanam's family members.

Advocate Abdul Mannan said that the family members of Nazma Khanam's claimed that she gave birth to a healthy baby and the baby couldn't die.

"After three days, the family members checked the list of pregnant women who gave birth to babies at the hospital and they found that two women to the similarity of their names - Nazma Khanam and Nazma Khatun had given birth to two babies and one among the two babies had died," Abdul Mannan said.

The Advocate further said that the family members of Nazma Khanam had lodged a complaint at Barpeta police station and urged police to investigate the matter.

"A case was registered at Barpeta police station under section 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), 363 (Punishment for kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code. The investigating officer of the case had filed a prayer petition before the court, Barpeta for a DNA test on October 8, 2020, and the court granted the prayer.

The DNA test report was come positive. Following the directive of the court, the baby was handed over to the original mother," Abdul Mannan said.

During a police investigation, it was found that due to the similarity of their names, the living child was handed over to another woman named Nazma Khatun of the Gossaigaon area instead of Nazma Khanam.

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