BIRGUNJ, Feb 25: A nursing mother has been absconding after leaving a newborn baby girl at a hospital in Birgunj.

A woman reportedly named as Sita Devi of Ranighat-6, Birgunj, is on the run after abandoning the one-day-old baby girl at Narayani Hospital on Saturday. Police suspect that both the name and address might be fake. Hospital records show that the woman named Sita Devi was admitted on Friday evening. She had arrived at the hospital along with her mother-in-law, Bedi Devi. 

She gave birth to a healthy baby girl weighing 3 kg the next day, Saturday, at 6:30 AM. According to the hospital sources, Bedi was angry with her daughter-in-law for giving birth to a baby girl for the fourth straight time. They stayed in the hospital all day on Saturday and managed to escape in the evening right under the nose of the hospital's health workers and security guards. 

The health workers started searching for them after seeing only the child in the bed in the evening, but they were nowhere to be found. 

By the time this news report was prepared on Sunday afternoon, the hospital authorities were yet to trace their whereabouts.

Hema Thapa, the nursing in-charge of the maternity ward, said that the mother and the grandmother ran away leaving the child unattended because of the birth of a daughter. "Only the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law arrived at the hospital. When questioned, the daughter-in-law explained that her husband was away working to support the family,” she said, adding, “The mother-in-law was angry after the birth of a girl child, it was hard to think that they would run away abandoning the baby. We have been looking for them since yesterday, but cannot find them anywhere.”

She said that the baby is healthy and kept in the NICU. The medical superintendent of the hospital Dr Chittaranjan Sah, said that the police were also informed about the incident when the mother was not found in the hospital. 

“The hospital records don’t have much details, the address has been written as Ranighat-6, and both women did not have mobile phones,” he said, “Maybe they ran away because of the birth of a daughter. The search is underway in coordination with the police.”

Deputy Superintendent of Police Kumar Bikram Thapa, spokesperson for the District Police Office, Parsa, said that their search is underway. He said that it is difficult to search because they wrote down the wrong address.

“We searched for them at the given address but we could not find anyone with those names and resemblance. We suspect that the incident was pre-planned,”  DSP Thapa said, “Since no ID card is required for admission to the hospital, it has become easier for people to dump their child.”

 
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