Why not record fingerprint to check theft of babies, asks HC

The suggestion came during the hearing of a habeas corpus petition moved by activist M B Nirmal on behalf of two platform dwellers whose infants were kidnapped while the family was asleep. The CCTV footage revealed that while one child was kidnapped in a car, the other was taken away in an autorickshaw. The police are struggling to identify those involved in the crime and retrieve the babies. 

The division bench comprising Justice S Nagamuthu and Justice V Bharathidasan, while expressing apprehension that the shocking episodes of child theft point to organ sale, said going by reports of child thefts and child swaps happening in hospitals, it gets important that the fingerprints of the child and mother are obtained and stored digitally. 

Negating Advocate General A L Somayaji’s submission that a baby’s fingerprint varies as it grows, Justice Nagamuthu pointed out that as far as he knew fingerprints stay the same from birth to death of a person and hence it’s important that the government resorted to such scientific methods to check child theft. It may be noted that as per the government’s submission during 2011 to 2015 as many as 5,056 boys and 9,660 girls went missing.

 Of them, 4801 boys and 9,373 girls were traced. While among missing boys three case files have been closed as undetected, four cases among girls have met with a similar fate. Search pertaining to as many as 252 boys and 283 girls are still progressing. The bench, on being told that the police have their hands full and hence a proper search for these hapless children cannot transpire, insisted that a separate unit be created exclusively for tracing such missing children. 

Justice Nagamuthu pointed out the concern ought to be on children in the age group of 1 to 10, who can’t even grapple as to what has happened to them. The bench also recorded the government submission that it has already embarked on the process of providing compensation of Rs.3 lakh to the kin if seven years had lapsed since the child had gone missing and a lakh if a year had gone by since the child’s theft. The Court’s suggestion on new born babies is applicable to both private and government hospitals.