Hun­gry and naked in the Pe­nal for­est, four-month-old San­jay Seep­er­sad's screams were what led po­lice to a clump of bush­es where a 29-year-old male rel­a­tive dumped him on Wednes­day night.San­jay's 20-year-old moth­er, Na­dia Ho­sein, cried tears of joy when they were re­unit­ed af­ter she had ear­li­er watched in hor­ror as the rel­a­tive held her son over a pond and threat­ened to end his life.Ho­sein, the moth­er of two, lives in ab­ject pover­ty. She said the night of ter­ror be­gan around 6.30 pm when the rel­a­tive re­turned drunk to their Ram­per­sad Trace, Clarke Road, home and start­ed an ar­gu­ment over a cell­phone charg­er she had lent his broth­er.In a fit of rage, the man picked up a piece of wood and struck her across her legs as she was about to breast­feed the child.On hear­ing Ho­sein's screams, her moth­er-in-law, Ra­j­daye Bas­deo, rushed to quell the fight.

How­ev­er, the man picked up the child and ran in­to the road, where he board­ed a taxi and went fur­ther in­to the trace. On reach­ing a bushy track, he jumped out of the car and walked about a quar­ter-mile in­to the for­est with the ba­by.Ho­sein and Bas­deo fol­lowed and af­ter a lengthy walk through the bush they found him hold­ing the child over the pond, shout­ing: "I will drop him, you know."She said: "Af­ter he walked by the pond, he sat down and he want­ed to kill my child. He said he want­ed to throw the child in­to the pond."She said tears were stream­ing down her cheeks as she plead­ed with him: "Don't do this, I want my boy child."In­stead, he tried to climb a co­conut tree, say­ing he would drop the ba­by on the ground.Ho­sein called the po­lice, who said when they ar­rived in the for­est the sus­pect told them: "If you come any clos­er I will drop the ba­by in the wa­ter."CID and Task Force of­fi­cers, led by Cpl Per­sad and PC Singh, ap­proached the man, who threw the child in­to the bush as he tried to get away.

Po­lice wres­tled him to the ground and af­ter putting up a fight he was tak­en to the po­lice sta­tion.Po­lice said a file is ex­pect­ed to reach the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to­day.

Ba­by San­jay was tak­en to the Siparia Health Cen­tre where doc­tors gave him a clean bill of health.De­spite the or­deal, Ho­sein said she still want­ed the rel­a­tive to re­turn home, say­ing she loved him and he was the sole bread­win­ner of the fam­i­ly.How­ev­er, she said, he first need­ed to stop drink­ing al­co­hol and end his abu­sive be­hav­iour.De­spite San­jay's es­cape, a life of hard­ship awaits as his moth­er, a sec­ondary school dropout, can­not find work.With the rel­a­tive ar­rest­ed, the on­ly source of food now comes from Bas­deo's $3,000 pen­sion cheque which has to feed ten mouths.

Ho­sein said: "I want him back but I want him to stop drink­ing his rum. I want him to con­trol him­self but if he is abu­sive to me, no."The fam­i­ly, who do not have ba­sic ameni­ties–run­ning wa­ter, lights, toi­lets and a paved road–said none of them had mon­ey to trav­el to the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day to car­ry a change of clothes for the sus­pect.Ex­plain­ing her plight, Ho­sein said her par­ents died when she was a child. Her moth­er was stabbed to death by her step­fa­ther dur­ing a do­mes­tic squab­ble and her fa­ther lat­er drank poi­son when she was 15.Af­ter that she moved be­tween fos­ter homes and abu­sive rel­a­tives which ul­ti­mate­ly led her to a life with the sus­pect.She said she felt bad about her sit­u­a­tion and hoped she could find some way to up­lift her fam­i­ly.Po­lice yes­ter­day de­scribed Ho­sein's cir­cum­stances as dis­heart­en­ing and said al­though they had tried to help her in the past, there was on­ly so much they could do.