NEWS

DNA test to identify swapped babies

By Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad
April 23, 2003 15:59 IST

The Hyderabad police has sought the assistance of the Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science Laboratory for conducting a DNA test to settle a case of baby swapping in a government maternity hospital in the city.

A team from the FSL has collected the samples for conducting the DNA tests on the baby girl, the baby boy and a woman to establish the truth.

The FSL would also match the footprints of the child, which were taken at the time of the delivery with those of the baby girl.

The police on Tuesday had registered a case of cheating at the Charminar police station after receiving a complaint from a woman alleging her newly born boy had been swapped with a girl by the hospital staff at Nayapul in Hyderabad.

The mother N Lata, 20, who is the wife of a farmer Janga Reddy, hails from Gollapally near Shamshabad. She was admitted to the hospital on April 11 and gave birth to a baby boy on April 16.

The baby, born underweight, was kept under observation in a separate ward and the parents and relatives visited the child everyday till Sunday, April 21.

The woman was shocked when the hospital staff handed over a baby girl to her on Monday afternoon. 

Despite the parents pleadings the hospital authorities maintained that Lata had given birth to a female child.

Lata returned the baby girl to the hospital authorities and her relatives approached the Charminar police to register a case. They produced the delivery certificate to prove that the child was a boy. 

The police verified the facts of the case and found that even in the hospital records, the staff had originally stated that Lata had given birth to a boy.

They have also found that there have been no claimants for the baby girl.

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad

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