It is shocking to note that on a day when the world celebrated the birth of baby Jesus Christ, a 10-day-old girl was found abandoned at Miramar. The police personnel shifted the baby to the Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim where she is responding to the treatment. Such incidents depict the inhuman side of humans. Primary causes of child abandonment have been found to be a child being born out of wedlock, poverty or financial hardship, being a single parent, post natal depression, mental illness, with the child having some form of disability, among other reasons. Those who abandon the newborn can be punished under Section 317 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). It attracts a punishment of a jail term which may extend to seven years or with fine or both. In the present instance it is learnt that the CCTV was not functioning and the hard-disk went missing. This will obviously hamper the efforts of the police to trace the culprits involved in the crime. The CCTV cameras should be functioning at all times. Hopefully the infant recovers fully and the culprits apprehended at the earliest.
