The baby with a sister in Rourkela. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Rourkela, June 27: Residents of Sector-16 here rescued an infant from a roadside this morning and handed him over to Childline, a NGO working for children. The baby is about two or three months old.

Local residents said that around 6am, morning walkers spotted the child who was crying loudly lying beside the road near Hanuman temple at Jagannathpalli.

“I was on my morning walk when I came across the news. We waited there for an hour hoping the parents of the child will come and take him, but nobody came. We then handed him to Childline,” said Kartik Chandra Pandav, secretary of an orphanage.

He said that the baby was in good health and it seemed that he was from a well-to-do family. The child was left on a piece of cloth on the ground. Local residents felt someone might have abandoned the baby on the street very early in the morning.

The district child welfare committee will take a decision on the fate of this child. Director of Childline Abul Kaalam Azad also happens to be one of the members of the committee.

He said that the child would stay with Childline until the child welfare committee decided anything finally on it. Besides, they would wait for at least two months for anyone to come and claim the child with proper proof.

“We will also publish the photo of the child in newspapers and wait for the baby’s claimant. If none comes forward, then the child welfare committee will take a final decision on where the baby would stay,” said Azad.