SRINAGAR, Oct 3: A baby girl with cleft lip who was abandoned by her parents at a Srinagar hospital has finally found a home.
Riyaz Rather and his wife have adopted the baby girl, who was left unclaimed since September 20 at the GB pant hospital probably because of her facial defects.
The Rathers have named her Farzana.
The couple, residents of Ganderbal district, at least 25 kilometers from the capital city, was reportedly childless for seven years, the Daily Bhaskar reported.
Earlier, the state’s health minister Sham Lal Sharma, instructed the director of health services Kashmir, Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman, to take responsibility for the corrective surgery of the baby’s lip and palate at the government’s expenses.
He said he was quite “moved” by her plight.
The case of the baby girl and subsequently no offers for her adoption had sent shock waves across Kashmir, where the majority of the population are Muslims and Islam is emphatic about caring for the needy and the destitute.
Sources told the daily Bhaskar that they had planned to handover the girl to an NGO – Help Foundation – in case nobody ever came to offer help.