After mixup at birth, Assam woman reunites with son via DNA match

A court in Assam’s Barpeta district reunited a woman with her three-year-old son, with whom she was separated right after the infant’s birth.

Similar names of two mothers whose day-old sons were admitted at the same hospital had led to a goof-up by the nurse on duty, with one of the aggrieved mother approaching the police over the matter which was finally settled with the help of a DNA test.

The Barpeta district and sessions judge on Friday ordered that the three-year-old boy be handed to his biological mother, Najma Khanam, of the same district.

Khanam had given birth to a boy at the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital here on March 3, 2019. She was shifted to the ICU after the delivery and the newborn was kept in the baby room.

Khanam’s husband was informed by the Hospital authority the next day that their son had died. Unwilling to accept it as their son was healthy at birth, the couple had filed a case against the Hospital at the Barpeta Sadar Police Station.

During the course of enquiry, police found that one Najma Khatun of Gossaigaon had got her newborn male child admitted to the same Hospital on the same day in a very serious condition and he had died the same day.

The nurse on duty had mixed up the two infants and handed the dead child to Najma Khanam’s husband.

The boy’s biological parentage was determined through a DNA test as ordered by the court, leading to his reunion with his actual family.