SRINAGAR: A 3-day-old girl was Sunday found abandoned at the valley’s premier children’s hospital, media reports say, the second such incident in less than two weeks.
The infant, born on January 26 at a District Hospital in Hajin village in north Kashmir, suffered from mild birth asphyxia and hyperthermia.
Doctors at the GB Pant Hospital said two men who registered themselves under false names brought in the baby for treatment, but deserted her at the casualty ward.
They told the Tribune newspaper that the infant had no clothes on and that they immediately shifted her to the neonates section of the Intensive Care Unit.
“No one came to look after her for the past two days,” superintendent of the hospital, Dr Masoodi told Rising Kashmir newspaper.
“The condition of the girl is now stable. We have contacted the police and an FIR has been lodged in this regard.”
Dr. Masoodi added that the process for seeking adoptive parents has been started and many couples have indeed approached the hospital administration.
“But we will wait for her parents for the next 24-48 hours,” he said.
Not abhorred
This is the sixth incident in last one year when newly born girls were abandoned by their parents at this hospital, throwing light on the attitude towards the female child by many in the Muslim-majority region.
The Jammu and Kashmir state has a sex ratio of 859 female children to 1,000 male children, according to the latest census data.
But observers say the fact that no sooner were the girls abandoned than couples adopted them showed that female children were “not abhorred by all”.
On Jan 17 last, a newly born girl was found abandoned outside a toilet at the hospital and was later adopted by a couple from Qazigund, Kulgam in south Kashmir.
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