Cuttack, March 19: Police today recovered the body of the eight-week-old infant, who had reportedly gone missing from the casualty ward of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Postgraduate Institute of Paediatrics (popularly known as Sishu Bhavan), from a well at Tatwa Butah, around eight kilometres away from the hospital.

On Thursday, the infant's father Jitendra Chand of Sunakhala in Khurda district had filed a missing complaint mentioning that the girl child was nowhere to be found ever since her mother, Swarnalata, went to the toilet. A case was subsequently registered at Lalbag police station under Section 363 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code.

But, investigation led the police to the well where Swarnalata had allegedly abandoned the dead child before cooking up the missing story. The police, however, are yet to ascertain whether the mother had killed the child.

"As the mother claimed that the baby had died after falling off her arms onto the road, we have booked a case under Section 304 (death not due to murder) of the Indian Penal Code and arrested her," assistant commissioner of police Pramod Kumar Rath told The Telegraph.

"Investigation is on. We expect things to become clear after the post-mortem report is available," Rath said.

The couple had turned up at Sishu Bhavan on Wednesday with the child who was suffering from severe chest infection. As no bed in the ICU was vacant, the baby was admitted at the casualty ward.

Though the mother had claimed that her daughter had gone missing around 9am on Thursday, closed-circuit television footage revealed that she had gone out of Sishu Bhavan alone with the baby.

The police said that during interrogation, Swarnalata admitted that she had left Sishu Bhavan with the baby on Thursday morning as there was no improvement in her condition. But, the infant had slipped off her arms when she was travelling in an auto at Badambadi.

As the baby died, Swarnalata dumped her body in the well, returned to Sishu Bhavan and claimed that the baby had gone missing.