File picture of Niha Modi with the baby girl

Jorhat, March 18: In a major reversal in the baby swapping case, the findings in the paternity test (DNA) has revealed that the baby girl claimed by the family not to be theirs is actually one of their twins.

Bipin and his wife Niha Modi have been claiming that the twins born to Niha on February 21 were boys, which were admitted to the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) of Jorhat Medical College and Hospital on the first day itself as they were underweight. However, the couple said they were “surprised” when one of the twins, on being reunited with the mother in the female ward on March 1, turned out to be a girl.

JMCH superintendent B.P. Das said he was yet to receive a copy of the DNA report of the Modis.

He said if the report had found that the baby girl’s parents were the Modis, then it proves that the controversy erupted because of error in documentation by the hospital staff.

Das said the authorities would initiate administrative action against the staff responsible for the mistake that snowballed.

Niha, a resident of Panbari tea estate in Titabar, had gone into labour around 5am on February 21 and was brought to the hospital in an ambulance. According to hospital records, she gave birth to a boy in the ambulance itself and delivered another boy at the hospital, which the authorities claimed was actually a girl. However, because of an “error” in documentation while writing the gender of the twins, it got entered as male.

Jorhat superintendent of police Sanjukta Parasor told The Telegraph that the DNA report of the blood samples of Bipin, Niha and the twins, that included the baby girl, stated the Modis were the biological parents of the girl, which the parents were claiming not to be theirs. The DNA tests were done at the State Forensic Science Laboratory, Guwahati.

Parasor said police would complete the investigations and submit the report to the court of the chief judicial magistrate. The blood samples were collected after the JMCH authorities registered a case at Jorhat police station on March 6, after which the police started probing the matter.

The lodging of an FIR and carrying out DNA tests of the baby girl and her parents were part of the recommendations by the four-member inquiry committee of doctors appointed by JMCH superintendent B.P. Das, which had probed the charges of baby swapping.

Das had constituted the panel on March 3 after the parents, with help from the Assam Tea Tribe Students Association, on March 2 had lodged a written complaint with the superintendent.

When contacted, Niha, who was looking after the infant girl in the female ward of the hospital, today said she and her family couldn’t believe that the girl was theirs. She said they were yet to be informed of the report and were totally “sure that their son was exchanged” with this girl. “I fed both the babies in the neo-natal unit for a week and both were boys. How could I believe a different story?” she asked.