A mother has filed a writ petition with the High Court to get back her child, who was stolen from a local hospital in Bogura on the day of its birth over nine years ago.
The writ petition sought a direction to hand over the 9-year-old child to the custody of her biological mother Nazmina Akhter, wife of Helal Uddin of Shalku Garhi village of Gabtali upazila in Bogura.
Advocate Syeda Nasreen, a lawyer of Bangladesh Supreme Court, filed the writ petition on behalf of the mother of the ‘stolen child’.
The writ petition is scheduled for hearing next Sunday (December 11) in the High Court bench of Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice Ahmed Sohel, said lawyer of the writ petition.
Secretary of Home Ministry, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Bogura, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Bogura Sadar Police Station, Judge of Women and Child Repression Prevention Tribunal-2 of Bogura, owner of IV Clinic in Bogura, one Khalilur Rahman of Gabtali upazila and his wife have been made defendants in the writ petition.
The writ petition was filed with a report published in a newspaper titled ‘9 years of efforts to get back stolen child of a helpless mother’.
According to the published report, the mother held a press conference at Bogura Press Club on October 4 as her efforts to get her stolen child back for nine years went into futility despite resorting to court.
According to the claim at the press conference, Nazmina Akhter was admitted to the IV Clinic at Noorani More area in Bogura town on July 28 in 2013 for delivery. She gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, by caesarean at the private clinic, which she confirmed earlier through a medical checkup. She could hear the cries of both the children in the operation theatre.
Hearing cries of Nazmina Akhter, her relatives including her mother came to know that Anwar Hossain, son of Dudu Sardar of Gabtali upazila, and his wife China Begum had stolen the baby in exchange of money in connivance with doctors and nurses.
Three months after the child was stolen, Nazmina and her relatives came to the house of Anwar Hossain. At the time, the husband and wife claimed that they had bought the child from Dhaka, and adopted it.
On July 20 in 2018, Nazmina and her relatives along with Nepaltoli UP office’s assistant Chanchal went to the house of Anwar Hossain and she was beaten up there.
Later, she filed a complaint with the village court in Nepaltoli Union Parishad. When the UP chairman failed to settle the matter, he filed a case against seven people in the court. The court appointed the chairman to investigate the matter.
Later, the UP chairman submitted a report to the court and the court issued summon against the names of the seven people. The accused were asked for DNA test after getting bail. When the DNA test report came back negative, the mother made objection. When tested again in Dhaka, the report came positive.
Nazmina Akhter claimed that her stolen child was not returned to her despite her DNA report being positive three years ago. She demanded the return of her lost child.
Advocate Syeda Nasreen told media that the daughter named Tasnia Akhter is with her real parents Helal Uddin and Nazmina Akhter, but the other child named Ahsan Habib is now under the custody of others.