Police said a young couple was arrested yesterday evening after local residents reported the two under the suspicion that they were going to dump their newborn baby.
“A resident who saw them suspected that they were trying to dumb their baby,” I Nyoman Wirajaya from the South Denpasar Police said today, as reported by Kompas.com.
Citing the statement of a witness, who is identified as Mujiyanto, police said he was passing by the scene of the incident when he saw the couple standing by a lump of blanket, wherein a baby was crying. Mujiyanto stopped and approached them, but the two attempted to flee the scene.
Mujiyanto reportedly stopped them from doing so and proceeded to report the matter to the police immediately. The couple, identified as 19-year-old LP and 18-year-old MAS, had just moved to Bali three weeks ago.
Wirajaya said the husband, LP, is still being questioned by the police, whereas MAS is being treated at Sanglah General Hospital along with the newborn baby boy, who is thankfully alive.
LP reportedly told the police that they were trying to get to the hospital yesterday evening after MAS said she was experiencing pain, but ended up getting lost on the way. They stopped when MAS couldn’t take the pain any longer, and she gave birth on the side of the street. According to local reports, MAS was about five to six months pregnant.
“They stopped and his wife gave birth on the street side, and that was when a local resident [Mujiyanto] passed by and suspected them of throwing away their baby,” Wirajaya explained.
It seems that there may have been a misunderstanding in this case, though Bali is certainly no stranger to other cases of babies being dumped, which usually involves teenagers or young adults.
In August, for example, police in Bangli regency arrested a couple for allegedly throwing away their newborn baby. That same week, police revealed another case involving a 20-year-old woman who was arrested for allegedly leaving her newborn baby in a fishing pond in south Denpasar.
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