Baby snatcher remanded

Jun 03, 2014 News

---

Baitoon Hussain, of Chesney, Albion, Corentyne, the woman accused of kidnapping a baby on May 24, last, at Port Mourant was yesterday remanded to prison by Magistrate Rabindranauth Singh at the Whim Magistrate’s Court. She had pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Sandra Mc Lean and her husband were on Sunday reunited with their baby after detectives swooped down on a house at Chesney Front, Albion, around 10:00 hrs. There McLean and her husband, Ravikant Vistonauth, were reunited with their days- old baby boy.
‘B’ Division police found the baby in the arms of its kidnapper, in a house. The child had been there with two persons the entire of last week. It was said that Hussain gave the child up without a fight. All the occupants were arrested and taken to the Whim Police Station for intense questioning, while the baby was returned immediately to the mother.
It was a lucky operation since many had feared that the baby-snatcher would have left for Mahdia (where her husband works), with the baby.
The woman and her son whose home the suspected baby- snatcher lived for the past week were also among those for questioning,Gangadai ‘Baby’ Budhram, while at the Whim Station, took herself clean out of the matter. She said that she had no idea her daughter-in-law (Debbie [only name given]) had a baby that belonged to someone else for an entire week at her home, and dwelled there.
“We brought her last Sunday from Goed Fortuin—-She had a child from there, she said she delivered the child.”
Budhram said that her son, Alvin, works in Mahdia and that the couple was only married for a few months now. She said that the baby-snatcher would visit there from time to time. When asked how the baby- snatcher behaved while residing at her home in Albion last week, Budhram said, “She acted normal, normal…He [the baby] didn’t cry—so you can’t suspect…She nursed the child and so. She never leave home with the child.”
“Every day I talking about the missing baby story we see in the papers—I didn’t know that was the child—we didn’t question!”  “Every day I talking about the story and she listening. If only I can ask she now why she did this—-If she want to go to jail, then let her go! I didn’t know nothing!”
And as the news spread that the missing baby was found, scores of residents of nearby villages, started to pour into the Whim Police Station compound, anxious to get a glimpse of the baby and his mother. A few actually did see the baby and mother, but others were unlucky since the mother had to be taken upstairs for questioning.
Still, villagers, mostly women, waited patiently in the compound, until police ranks asked them to leave the station if they had no business there. They waited patiently, still, outside for hours.  “The villagers felt the baby-snatcher had an accomplice.
“They said that the police should have brought her out for a public shaming and allow them to tell her what they had on their minds about the cruel thing she had done. Some villagers said that even if the baby- snatcher had lost her baby, she had no right to abduct someone else’s, regardless of what state of mind she was in. “The police will have to ask her what happened to her baby—we don’t believe it died—she was pregnant a few weeks ago—she has to find that child too!”
“She might have gone and take the baby to Mahdia—Who knows. She might have sold it too or sacrifice it—she wutliss!” shouted a woman.
McLean said, “The Muslims should punish her [the alleged baby-snatcher] for what she do to every Muslim woman. She make four Muslim women get locked up and it was Muslim people who helped us to get back our baby. She too wicked to be a Muslim woman.”
McLean and the suspect did not have words yesterday. “The police didn’t allow me to talk to her,” but she recognized her from that fateful morning at the Port Mourant Market. Her baby boy, she added, is very healthy after an examination at the Port Mourant Hospital yesterday, except that his head was badly shaven, presumably at a ‘nine- day celebration’ held by the alleged baby- snatcher.
First thing she will do now to her baby is give him a bath; get him registered and give him a name. “He got to register and go to the health centre to get he BCG [vaccine]…”
“From the time I see his face, I knew it was my baby!” she exclaimed. She noted that the past days were full of horror, pain and stress. She hardly slept and whenever she did sleep, it was for short durations and she would wake up to pray.
“Since last week Saturday to this morning, we are stressed. Whole day I sit down crying—I didn’t eat—I prayed, ‘ow God let me find me baby’. Me husband didn’t cry no day until today when he see the baby.”

---

---