Runa Begum, wife of Kawsar Hossain Babu of Mohammadpur, gave birth to twin baby boys around 5:00am on August 20. Photo: Palash Khan

A day into the High Court order for a judicial inquiry, the newborn baby, who was stolen from Dhaka Medical College and Hospital on August 21, was rescued from a house in Gazipur Sadar upazila today.

During the drive, Rapid Action Battalion personnel also detained two women – Bely Akter alias Rahima, 45, and Rasheda Khanom alias Parvin, 48, -- on charges of stealing the baby.

Soon after the baby was rescued, he was taken to the Rab headquarters in Uttara of Dhaka where his parents –Kawsar Hossain Babu and Runa Begum - were present.

Acting on a tip-off, Rab members raided the house of Parvin, a midwife by profession, in Board Bazar area at about 3:00am, Mufti Mahmud Khan, director of Rab's Legal and Media wing, said at a press briefing organised at Rab headquarters.

As per her statement, the Rab team went to the house of Bely who bought the baby at Tk 40,000 from Parvin as she has no child, the Rab official said.

CCTV footage shows the suspect taking one of the twins to a doctor at DMCH at 10:51am on Wednesday apparently to gain the mother's trust. The woman stole one of the twins on August 21. Photo: TV grab (Somoy TV)

Parvin, who served at different clinics as midwife, went to the DMCH to visit one of his relatives.  

After Runa gave birth to the twin, Parvin took care of the babies to gain confidence of the couple and on the following day she stole one of them, Khan said.

Parvin often stole babies from the clinics telling the parents that their babies were born dead and sold the infants to other people, the Rab officer told reporters.

Rab personnel conducted raids in different places to rescue the stolen baby following media outcry in the country, Khan added. "As a result, we can rescue the baby," he added.

While talking to reporters, Kawser gave all the credit to the media for getting his baby back.

He also thanked the government and Rab members for taking prompt initiatives to rescue his baby.

Expressing gratitude towards the media and Rab, the father also expressed his hope that he wanted one of his sons to be a journalist while another a Rab person.

Runa also thanked media, the government and Rab during the press briefing.

After the baby went missing on August 21, the High Court yesterday expressed utter dismay over stealing of newborn babies from DMCH and ordered conducting a judicial inquiry into the "entire incident" relating to the stealing of the baby.

The court came up with the order and rule following a report published in The Daily Star under the headline "Baby stealing at DMCH: Culprit fled as CCTV went off" yesterday.

The court ordered the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Dhaka to assign a magistrate to enquire into the matter and to find out the loopholes in the security of the ward concerned of the hospital and the administrative failure to protect the child on that day.

Issuing a suo moto rule, the HC bench also ordered the police to provide protection to the parents of the missing child and to assist the magistrate in holding the probe.