Bengaluru: For an eight-month-old boy, Sunday’s two-hour wait probably felt like forever — his mother sat inside a police constable recruitment exam hall, unwilling to lose an opportunity she had travelled from Shivamogga to pursue. It was three women police personnel who stepped in, borrowing a saree to fashion a cradle, and singing the baby to sleep.The incident unfolded at Sri Krishna Degree College in ITI Layout, Banashankari 3rd Stage — one of the centres for the police constable recruitment examination. The centre falls under the jurisdiction of the Chennammanakere Achukattu police station.The candidate, Sunitha, had travelled with her husband, a farmer, and their eight-month-old son. Before entering the examination hall around 10am, she fed the child and put him to sleep, leaving him in his father’s care.The sleep lasted barely 15 minutes. The baby woke up looking for his mother. His father later admitted that he didn’t know how to calm him. Since the child was born, he told police, he had held him only three times.As the cries grew louder, police sub-inspector Manoj Kumar, who was deployed at the examination centre, stepped in. He carried the child and tried to soothe him, but the baby continued crying for nearly 20 minutes.Thinking the mother might have to be called out of the examination hall, Manoj was about to interrupt her when two women police constables – Lakshmi Kannanawadi and Girija, herself the mother of a newborn – along with home guard Vijaya, stopped him.They said they would take care of him. The three women tried everything they could think of, carrying the baby, speaking to him softly and trying to distract him. But nothing worked.Then came an idea born less out of training than instinct. They borrowed a saree from an elderly woman living nearby, tied it into a makeshift cradle and placed the baby inside. Standing around the gently swaying cloth, they rocked him softly and sang lullabies.Slowly, the crying eased. Within minutes, the baby was asleep. One of the women remained beside the sleeping child while the others returned to their security duties.Around 12.15pm, Sunitha emerged from the examination hall. She found her son asleep, watched over by the police force she hoped to join. Overcome with emotion, she thanked the officers, including Manoj, for allowing her to complete the examination.The gesture has drawn praise from senior police officers and members of the public after a video of the incident spread widely on social media.DCP (south) Kona Vamsi Krishna said:”I appreciate the humanitarian work by our staff while also performing their official duty. When the incident came to my notice, I initially thought it was the baby of one of our staff members deployed on special duty, but I later learnt it was the baby of a candidate. Such good deeds create trust in the department.”The officers later said they were all hoping Sunitha clears the examination and one day wears the same uniform in which they stood beside her child. For those two hours, while one mother chased a future in uniform, others quietly stepped in, asking for nothing in return except that she be allowed to finish what she had come for.
