KARACHI: A newborn baby was kidnapped in the gynaecological ward of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) by a burqa-clad woman, police said on Sunday.

The Nazimabad police said that Noor Begum, a resident of Taiser Town, was admitted to the hospital on Sept 15 and the next day she gave birth to a baby girl at around 11.30am.

Later on, she was shifted from the operating theatre to the gynaecological ward, bed number 22.

Complainant of the case Nazik Husain, father of the baby, told the police that at around 1.45pm, his sister-in-law informed him that the baby was missing as an unidentified woman took her away.

The Nazimabad police registered an FIR (285/2016) on the complaint of the father under Sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The officer said that the investigators had obtained a closed-circuit television camera footage, which showed that a burqa-clad woman entered in the gynaecological ward, spoke with the mother of the baby, held the baby in her arms and took her away.

She was seen leaving the hospital in a rickshaw in the footage, added the officer.

The police were trying to ascertain the identity of the woman kidnapper.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2016