A Tripura mother charged the Tamil Nadu based Christian Medical College (CMC) hospital with selling out her seven-month old daughter to a couple for failing to pay the treatment bill and resulted in the suicide of her husband.

Unokoti district police has been investigating the case but refused to make any comment. The mother, a staff nurse of Fatikroy Primary Health Centre in Kumarghat of Unokoti district in North Tripura, alleged that her husband, an employee of Tripura government, had committed suicide two days ago after he heard that his daughter had been sold out .

According to the mother, their only daughter was referred to CMC Vellore for her heart problem four months ago. The child was admitted to the hospital for operation which had cost them Rs 1.5 lakh but subsequently the hospital bills swelled up to more than Rs. 15 lakh due to post-operative complications.

“We could not manage such to pay such a huge amount and the hospital authority was not cooperating with us. At one stage they even accused us for not being the parents though we had shown them all the papers of her birth. They asked us to go home and manage the money to get her back home. From next day they stopped us from meeting with our daughter and when we forced them they allowed us to stay with her,” she told newspersons.

Meanwhile, the hospital authority brought a couple, claiming to be the parents of the girl, and charged the parents with stealing the baby and lodged a complaint with police. Accordingly, Tamil Nadu police swung into action and the couple was forced to leave the place leaving behind their daughter in the hospital.
 

She claimed that after they reached Tripura they brought the matter to Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, Director General of Police, officials of Social Welfare department and chairman of Tripura Child Rights Protection Commission a number of times but their plea fell on deaf ears.

Meantime, the father got a notice from the hospital authority last week asking him to meet with them in connection with the case which had been filed against them in Tamil Nadu. “On February 4 , when I came from duty I saw my husband hanging from the roof inside the bedroom . The tormented story of our sufferings has been described in the suicide note, which is now with the police. We had broken down completely in last few days,” the mother pointed out.

However, Chairperson of Tripura Child Rights Protection Commission Nilima Ghosh admitted the claim of the mother and said that they had been trying to rescue the child and about a month ago the father was sent to bring back the daughter after due consultation with the hospital concerned but he reported the commission that instead of giving him back the child, he was harassed in local police station. “We are not sitting silent. The child will be rescued and appropriate action will be taken against the accused persons. However, unfortunately we lost him,” Ghosh added.