Yet Another Unwanted Girl child

(this is heartbreaking actually ... borrowed from Times of India courtesy Alankrita)

"We want the boy." Even as this chorus was on, the two babies — a male and a female — were lying next to each other in the neonatal intensive care unit of the RSRM Maternity Hospital in Royapuram, waiting for the nurses to give them the milk expressed from their mothers.

The familes of both Farheed Begum and Kamatchi, the two women who delivered, insist that they would take only the baby boy home. While Farheed and her husband Ansari, a tailor, say that boy is biologically their's, Kamatchi and Elango say the baby is emotionally attached to them.

"My wife gave birth to him. He is ours. Just because the hospital made a mistake does not mean we can give him away to someone else," said Ansari. He has paid at least Rs 1,000 to the hospital, which boasts of free delivery for patients, for getting the boy.

"We paid them money at every stage. A ward boy took Rs 300 saying it was a baby boy. But when my wife was wheeled out, she had a baby girl with her," said Ansari. "We would have happily taken the girl home. But the doctor who attended to my wife told us that she delivered a boy," he said.

But Kamatchi's mother Lakshmi cried foul. "My daughter came out of the theatre with the baby boy. She fed him. We are happy to have a boy. We don't want the girl," Lakshmi said, threatening to immolate herself if the babies were switched now.

The hospital's ayahs and ward boys probably knew this was the best time to fleece her. "They took Rs 200 from me, saying that would help us keep the boy. But now they say they can't change what's written in the doctor's register," Lakshmi said.

The police, who have registered a complaint, suspect that the tags were deliberately mismatched. "Almost all staff in the lower grade take money. Only investigations can throw more light," an officer said.

Related Reading: This only happens in India! (a baby girl rejected by parents despite DNA proof)