The Dushanbe Police Department has released a video featuring 26-year-old Zarina Saimoudinova, who was detained on suspicion of abducting a newborn from Maternity Hospital No. 1. The woman is a resident of Abdurahmon-Jomi district, Khatlon province, according to the city police department.
In the video, Saimoudinova says she had been married for six years but was unable to have a child. She claims this was the reason she decided to take a newborn from the maternity hospital.
The suspect says her mother-in-law worked at the hospital and that she used her clothes to enter the facility and disguise herself as a member of staff.
“At around 10:30 p.m., I came to the maternity hospital and changed into my mother-in-law’s clothes. First, I put on a medical uniform, then another gown over it. I left through the main entrance and took off the outer gown so that people would think I was a member of staff,” she says in the video.
second, third and fourth floors. In one ward, she saw two women sleeping alongside their babies.
“I went into the corridor and checked that no one was there. Then I returned to the ward, took one of the babies, put him in the bag and left the maternity hospital. I put the gown back on, got into a taxi and went to my mother-in-law’s home,” the suspect says.
She claims that at around 9 a.m. the following morning, she took another taxi to Sakhovat market, paying 50 somoni. The driver then offered to take her to Abdurahmon-Jomi district for 250 somoni, and she agreed.
The prosecutor’s office in Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district has opened a criminal case under Article 130 of Tajikistan’s Criminal Code, which covers kidnapping. A preliminary investigation is under way.
The baby is back with his parents
Relatives of the newborn’s mother, Mavzouna Akramova, told Asia-Plus that they did not know the woman suspected of taking the baby and had first seen her in the police video.
According to the family, the infant is now at home with his parents and is doing well. They thanked the police for finding the child so quickly.
The parents named their son Aminjon in honor of the police officer who found him, the relatives said.
How did the baby go missing?
On October 11, 19-year-old Mavzouna Akramova, a native of Nourobod district (Rasht Valley in eastern Tajikistan), gave birth to her first child, a boy, at the Research Institute of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology of Tajikistan, commonly known as Maternity Hospital No. 1.
According to the family, the baby was born healthy. Relatives stayed at the hospital until around 4 p.m. that day before returning home.
The following morning, October 12, the family planned to visit the young mother and her newborn. However, Mavzouna’s uncle received a call from the hospital informing him that the infant had gone missing at around 1 a.m.
On the morning of October 13, the hospital confirmed the newborn’s disappearance to Asia-Plus.
Mohpari Akramova, the young mother’s mother-in-law, previously told Asia-Plus that, according to information received by the family, CCTV footage allegedly showed a woman believed to be a hospital employee taking the infant and leaving the facility.
On the morning of October 16, the Dushanbe Police Department reported that the newborn had been found alive and well and returned to his mother.
Later that day, Mavzouna and her baby were discharged from the maternity hospital.