Authorities know the names of the mothers of nine out of ten babies who perished in fire at a state-run hospital in Maharashtra's Bhandara district on early Saturday morning.
One name is missing, as the child had been abandoned at birth.
The new-born baby, a boy, had been found in the remote village of Kesalwada in Lakhani tehsil last week, a district official said. Discovery of an abandoned child also made headlines in local newspapers.
Police registered a case against its unidentified parents and admitted it to local rural hospital. As his condition was critical, he was shifted to Special Newborn Care Unit of Bhandara district hospital, the official said.
When a fire broke out in the hospital in the early hours of Saturday, the staff succeeded in rescuing seven out of 17 babies from the Newborn Care Unit. The boy was not among the lucky ones.
Meanwhile, many parents whose newborn babies were among those dead in the Bhandara hospital fire have blamed the staff there for dereliction of duty.
Ten babies died after the fire broke out on Saturday at the Special Newborn Care Unit of the four-storeyed district hospital in Maharashtra's Bhandara district town, about 900 km from the state capital Mumbai.
Kin of Geeta and Vishwanath Behere, whose two month- old daughter was among the 10 newborn babies who perished in the blaze, blamed the hospital authorities for dereliction of duty.
They claimed that no doctor or nurse was present in the unit when fire broke out. They blamed the hospital administration for the tragedy and sought action against those responsible.
