Nearly four years ago, a family heard a “strange noise” coming from the woods near their home in northern Georgia.
They thought it might have been a wild animal, but the family’s two teenage daughters were convinced it sounded like a crying baby and “couldn’t let it go,” authorities said. It was the middle of the night and a violent storm was about to hit the area, but the daughters convinced their father to investigate the noise with them.
Their search led to the discovery of a newborn who was tied up in a plastic bag and left to “suffocate and die” in a remote area of the woods on June 6, 2019, according to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office.
The child – now named Baby India – was rescued and survived.
“I called it divine intervention then, and I still believe in it today,” Sheriff Ron Freeman said during a news conference posted on the Sheriff’s Office YouTube.
Now, nearly four years later, the child’s mother has been arrested, the sheriff’s office said in a May 19 press release. Karima Jiwani, 40, faces charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault, reckless abandonment and first-degree cruelty to children.
As of May 21, it was unclear if she had an attorney who could comment on her behalf.
find baby india
There is evidence that Jiwani gave birth to baby India in a vehicle, Freeman said during the press conference.
She then drove the baby around for a “considerable amount of time” before tying the baby up in a plastic bag and “throwing it in the woods to die,” Freeman said.
Investigators believe Jiwani was alone when she left the baby in the woods, Freeman said.
Freeman explained that Georgia has a safe haven law. It allows a parent to leave a baby “with an employee or volunteer at a medical facility, fire station, or police station if the child is no older than thirty days” without criminal penalties, according to the state’s Department of Human Services.
But Freeman said Jiwani “made no effort to leave this child in a safe place where there was even the remotest possibility of her being found.”
The story goes on
“This child was wrapped in a plastic bag to suffocate and thrown 20 meters into the woods in a remote area with a house nearby,” Freeman said. “This family happened to come home when they shouldn’t have and happened to go back outside because it was going to rain to empty their car, even though they had previously decided they would do it the next morning. This is divine intervention. This baby should be here.”
Jiwani’s arrest
Freeman said that after the discovery, calls came in from people wanting to foster, adopt or help little India.
But the few clues that investigators got about the case didn’t do much, Freeman said.
Then, ten months ago, investigators used DNA to identify the baby’s father, which Freeman said launched an “even more focused investigation.”
Investigators soon managed to identify Jiwani as the “biological parent” based on DNA.
“She was appropriately arrested by Deputy Terry Roper, who helped save Baby India nearly four years ago,” the sheriff’s office said in the release.
Freeman said there was no evidence the father knew of the pregnancy or the baby’s abandonment. He said officials would investigate Jiwani’s “history of unknown or concealed pregnancies.”
Freeman said the child is “fine now” and “happy and healthy.”
“I said to my team, ‘Man, isn’t it going to be cool to watch this little girl grow up and see her accomplish some great things despite her beginnings,'” he said.
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