A baby whose head was hit on a wall by a housemaid has died. A tripartite committee from the Forensic Laboratory Department at the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department is tasked with a prima facie examination of the baby’s body to reveal the reasons for her death and to make clear how the baby sustained such injuries.
The accused, a spiteful Indonesian housemaid, who harboured ill feelings towards her workmate Filipina nanny and tried to get rid of her by harming the four-month-old baby girl placed in the care of the Filipina, was remanded in police custody. The Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution ordered the incarceration of the accused for allegedly smashing the head of the baby girl against a wall rendering her motionless.
The parents of the four-month-old Malaak hired a Filipina nanny and an Indonesian housemaid to help them manage the home as both of them were employed. The couple also has a four-year-old son and an ailing grandmother living in their house.
The reason of the grudge of the Indonesian housemaid towards the Filipina was that the former was entrusted with cleaning the house and looking after the grandmother, while the latter was hired just to take care of the baby.
The incident took place last week when the father was out of the country and the mother had left for work. The nanny woke up in the morning and as usual changed Malaak’s clothes, fed her and cradled her until the baby fell asleep. She then went to the toilet and minutes later went to the baby’s room to check on her. The nanny suspected something wrong as she saw the baby’s face had turned yellow and when she touched the baby, she found her cold and lifeless. The nanny carried the baby and moved to the grandmother’s room to get help. The ailing grandmother called her daughter asking her to come home.
As soon as the mother reached home, she and the nanny took the baby to the hospital. After checking up the child, the doctors told the mother that the baby’s heart had stopped beating and the baby could not breathe. The doctor quickly resuscitated the baby’s heart till it started beating again. She was moved to the ICU as she was in a state of coma. The X-ray showed that the baby received many blows on the head and suffered skull fracture and cerebral hemorrhage. The shocked mother then called her husband and informed him about the incident.
The father said over the phone: “How come that a four-month baby who was sleeping in her bed and had not even started moving received smashes on her head?” He asked his wife to go back and examine the surveillance cameras at his residence to know what had exactly happened. The footage taken from the cameras showed that the maid carried the baby and moved to the mother’s room. There she began hitting Malaak’s head on the wall and ground and then placed her back in her bed.
When the housemaid heard the screams of the nanny, she moved quickly to the grandmother’s room asking what happened and cried with the others pretending that she did not know what had gone wrong with the baby. Initially, the maid denied any connection with the matter putting the blame on the nanny.
However, when confronted with the video footage, she claimed that the baby had accidentally fallen off her hands. The public prosecution ordered the housemaid to be remanded in police custody until the investigation is over.(KT)
