A SMALL fight happened in Bao’an District on Saturday night, which uncovered that a young couple abandoned their 2-month-old son two years ago because they could not afford to raise him, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

    Police at Xixiang Police Station in Bao’an received a phone call from a man surnamed Li, who claimed that someone was beating him at a dessert restaurant near Pingzhou Metro Station.

    Arriving at the scene, police officers found that Li and another man, surnamed as Xie, were fighting with each other. A woman, known as Su, was also at the restaurant.

    The police officers found out that Li got into the fight with Xie because Xie had been chasing after Su, who was Li’s ex-girlfriend, and he was trying to interrupt the two.

    During the interrogation, Li told the police that he and Su had a child together two years ago, but they were too young to raise the baby at that time.

    Li later admitted that he came from Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China, in 2012, and met Su on the Internet in 2013. The woman came to Shenzhen to join Li, but soon found that she was pregnant after living with Li.

    Li said that he was working as a salesperson at a company in Futian District and only earned 3,000 yuan (US$449) per month at the time. Su was only 20 years old and could not find a job in Shenzhen.

    Due to their financial burden they did not dare to tell their parents, and the two decided to abandon the child.

    The father recalled that he and Su had left the infant on the staircase of the Bao’an Welfare House one day and when he checked a few days later, the child had been taken away by someone. He paid close attention to news reports after that, but no information was released about the child.

    Li admitted that he knew they might have violated the law and had thought about asking for his parents’ help. However, the young man eventually kept it a secret until Saturday night when he got into the fight with Xie.

    Police started an investigation to find the baby, who would be 2 years old now. The Bao’an Central Hospital confirmed that Su gave birth to a boy Feb. 15, 2014.

    Police from Huangtian, where the welfare house is, said that no dead infants were found between February and May that year, and two abandoned infants were brought to the station.

    Li and Su would be charged with the crime of abandonment if police find the infant. If the baby is confirmed dead, they would be charged with murder.

    Records at the Huangtian Police Station showed that police had found an abandoned infant April 16, 2014, and the baby will undergo a DNA test to see if he is Su’s child.

    The mother said that if the police could help find her child, she would raise the child on her own. (Zhang Qian)