The High Court (HC) on Sunday summoned five doctors of Comilla Medical College Hospital over the alleged decapitation of a baby during a caesarean operation.
The doctors are head of gynaecology Dr Karuna Rani Karmaker, Dr Nasrin Akter Popy, Dr Janibul Hoque, Dr Dilruba Sharmin and Dr Ayesha Afroze. Karuna led the surgery.
They will have to appear in court on April 4 and explain the alleged incident. The High Court issued the suo moto rule on Sunday after Supreme Court lawyer Md Asaduzzaman brought the reports to the court’s attention.
Advocate Shegufta Tabassum Ahmed, who stood by Asaduzzaman, said human rights body Ain O Salish Kendra had flagged out the reports published in the Dainik Janakantha and the Amader Shomoy.
The order asks why tough action should not be initiated against the five in question.
The director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, the director of Comilla Medical College Hospital, Comilla civil surgeon, director of Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council, and Dr Karuna Rani Karmaker have to respond within four weeks.
Zulekha Begum, 30, was admitted to the hospital on March 17. She went through a C-section the next day, according to the media reports.
Doctors beheaded the baby and removed Zulekha’s uterus during the surgery, her husband Shafique Quazi alleged.
Since then, Zulekha had been suffering at the hospital.
A guard took Tk 500 from the family to bury the dead child, Amader Shomoy quoted Quazi.
Quazi saw that the baby’s head was not attached to its body. He took a snapshot of the child on his mobile phone, according to the report.
Doctors, who conducted the surgery, told Amader Shomoy that the child died in the womb. They had to behead it and remove the uterus to save the mother.
There was no negligence on their part, they claimed.
Last year in October, doctors at Gouripur Life Hospital in Comilla’s Daudkandi brought one baby out of a woman and stitched her womb up keeping another baby inside, assuming that it was a tumour, reports bdnews24.com.