Couple left infant in train as they were not married

Police took into custody at two places in Bandarawela, a mother and father in connection with abandoning their infant in the toilet of the night mail train ‘Meenagaya’ scheduled to run from Colombo to Batticaloa which had been stopped at the Fort Railway Station on Saturday (11). During an inspection carried out by security officers of the Fort Railway Station based on information received from train commuters that there was an infant inside the toilet of the night mail train on March 10 , this baby was found inside a basket. Subsequent to the discovery the police had admitted the infant to the Colombo Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital.

It is reported that the two-week old infant who had been abandoned thus had been fed by nurses serving at the hospital. With this incident appearing in the media, the Bandarawela Police Special Unit had received a tip-off on the morning of March11 about a woman suspected to be the mother of the abandoned infant.

Accordingly, an investigation had been carried out by a team of officers from that unit and subsequent to confirming that this 25 year old woman was in fact the infant’s mother, she had been taken into custody, the police said. It was revealed during questioning by the police that she had been helping make cakes at a friend’s house in Rajagiriya and that she had conceived after a love affair.

Later, when she had told her boy friend about this, they had lived together in a rented room for

close to one year and she said that she had given birth on February 25. Then she had handed over the infant to her boyfriend, the father of the baby and left for Bandarawela in a bus. By then, acting on a tip-off, a team including the Koslanda police station Officer-In-Charge had arrested a 25-year-old man suspected to be the father of the baby in Miriyabedda area of Koslanda on the same day. It was discovered that the person who was arrested was a final year student of a private university.

The young man had told the police that since he and the infant’s mother were not married, the baby’s mother was not in favour of informing her parents after the birth and hoping that someone will take the baby and care for it and raise it, they had decided to abandon the baby in a train. He had also mentioned that he was willing to accept the mother and baby.

The father has told the police further that he is engaged in an online job and the plastic basket used to put the child in was also bought online.