He lay on the last step of Jagannath Ghat on Monday morning, flailing tiny arms and legs and wailing. Till Saraswati Saha noticed the two-month-old boy on a handkerchief around 7.30 am.

The 41-year-old mother of three recalled: ?If I hadn?t seen him, the baby would have been washed away by the tide. I badly wanted to keep the boy, but having once worked with the police, I realised they needed to be alerted.?

Three officers from North Port police station, one of them a woman, arrived soon after.

They took the infant to the thana, where he was wrapped in a dry cloth and given warm milk.

The group then headed for the Missionaries of Charity, on AJC Bose Road, where the nuns gave the baby a bath and new clothes. They then blessed him, but couldn?t take him in for technical reasons.

The baby was taken to Sukanya, the state-run orphanage at Mahishbathan, in Salt Lake. There, it was given some medicines after a medical examination.

Around six hours after the baby was rescued, he was finally placed on a cot. ?He instantly flashed a smile. I had been working since Sunday night and was very tired, but I couldn?t have asked for more,? said one of the police officers who took the infant ?home?.

The baby?s parents could not be traced till late in the evening. It was not clear who had left him on the ghat steps.