Case of babies dumped in garbage bins: Cops clueless

The infant was barely alive and the police handed it to the nearby government hospital. “When we found him,he was severely dehydrated and had injuries all over his body,and could barely cry,” said sources in police.

“The infants we find alive are mostly in a pathetic condition—dehydrated,hungry; and sometimes wounded from stray dog attacks. Some die in our hands soon after,” they added.

The practice of abandoning live newborn infants — mostly girls in case of married mothers; and boys as well,in case of unwed mothers—to their death is becoming an accepted reality in the city now. But the police say they really don’t know what to do about it.

The police book these cases under Section 317 (if the infant is alive) or 318 (if the infant is dead) of IPC. But the cases remain on paper; no one has been arrested or convicted in any of these cases so far,“because the accused are unidentified and the suspects are not found,” say officers.

Inspector J B Gadhvi of the city police is candid: “In Ahmedabad,it is now quite normal to find girl infants dumped on roadsides. Most of it happens near vegetable markets,agriculture produce godowns,railway stations,and waste dumping areas in the city.”

He added: “In many cases,the infants would be dead by the time we get to know,and some we find alive,die while we rush them to a hospital. After we get the post-mortem done on the bodies,we wait for claimants,but no one ever turns up.”

The police station at Vejalpur has been getting the maximum number of such cases,because the APMC market in its area is a “convenient place to do it unobserved,” said the local police.

Gadhvi said: “Once we find these infants,we usually check with neighbouring government hospitals and local midwives,as the practice of using the services of midwives in deliveries is quite common here. But such women could have used fake names to get admitted to the hospital. Or there may even be no records at all,if they had gone to smaller private clinics for delivery.”

He added,“Finding them is very difficult,especially when many women from remote north Gujarat villages also come to Ahmedabad for delivery.”

Vegetable vendors near Amraiwadi cannot forget the feeble cries of a newborn girl they had found stuffed in a used vegetable sack and abandoned there,last month.

Some women leave their newborns in government hospitals they deliver in,rather than dumping them in the open. Last month,a girl delivered a boy at the Shardaben Hospital and went missing from the ward,soon after. She had registered her name as Kamini Thakore and had given her address as Rabari Colony of Shakti Nagar,Ahmedabad.

The police could not find any such person. In another case a couple of months ago,a woman delivered a boy at the Civil Hospital and then vanished leaving the infant there. She had also registered fake name and address in the hospital records.

DCP B R Pandor (Zone IV) said the police are helpless: “We hardly ever get to crack these cases. After we get the postmortem report showing the cause of death,we conduct our investigations. But eventually most of these cases are closed as we just can’t go on searching everywhere without a clue.”

He added: “If we manage to save the infant,it is handed over to an orphanage (the Mahipatram Roopram Ashram,at Kagdapith) and the case ends there. The only way to curb this criminal trend is to put checks on it at the dispensary or the hospital level.”