Mother reunites with son 3 years after he was switched by hospital as newborn

In a shocking and bizarre incident, a woman from Assam's Barpeta district was reunited with her son, who had been switched by the hospital as a newborn. The reunion happened three years after the incident, following a court directive. 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

Three years back on May 3, 2019, 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. 

Nazma Khanam was one of the pregnant women, who gave birth to a son. She 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.

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. 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.

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

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.

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.