A Bengaluru court recently sentenced a 36-year-old psychiatrist to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for kidnapping a newborn baby and selling him for Rs 15 lakh in 2020.
The convict, Rashmi Shashikumar, a resident of Nagarbhavi, was also fined Rs 1 lakh by Judge C B Santosh. Shashikumar, who had been out on bail, was present in court when the verdict was announced on February 19. She was immediately taken into custody and sent to Bengaluru Central Prison.
The case dates back to May 29, 2020, when a newborn was stolen from the BBMP Hospital in Chamarajpet. The baby’s mother, exhausted after giving birth, fell asleep after taking medication prescribed by a doctor. When she woke up 45 minutes later, her baby was missing. A police complaint was lodged, but tracing the child took nearly a year.
On May 29, 2021, the police recovered the infant from a couple in North Karnataka, who had been misled into believing that the baby was born through surrogacy. Officers found the couple celebrating the child’s first birthday when they arrived at their home, completely unaware of the deception.
The investigation was extensive, involving over 700 witness interviews, analysis of 300 CCTV recordings, and examination of 5,000 phone call records. CCTV footage helped the police create a suspect’s sketch, which eventually led them to Shashikumar and the unsuspecting couple.
According to the chargesheet, Shashikumar had known the couple since 2015 when she worked at a private hospital in Hubballi. The couple had a child with special needs, and Shashikumar convinced them that surrogacy could help them have a healthy baby.
In 2019, she took biological samples from the man under false pretences, claiming she had found a surrogate mother in Bengaluru. She also took Rs 14.5 lakh from them, promising the baby would be born by May 2020.
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As the deadline neared, Shashikumar targeted BBMP Hospital due to its weak security. She visited the maternity ward multiple times before executing the abduction. On May 29, 2020, she instructed a hospital attendant to give the mother sleeping pills. Once the mother was unconscious, Shashikumar took the baby and later handed him over to the couple at a friend’s house in Vijayanagar.
The trial was emotionally charged, with both the biological parents and the North Karnataka couple recounting their ordeals. The baby’s biological parents had lost hope of ever seeing their child again, while the woman who had unknowingly raised him for a year was devastated upon learning the truth.
Public prosecutor B H Bhaskar stated that DNA tests confirmed the child’s biological parents. Additionally, bank records proved that Shashikumar had received Rs 14.5 lakh from the North Karnataka couple, and phone records established their long-standing connection. Mobile tower data also proved Shashikumar was at the hospital on the day of the abduction.