A Sri Lankan baby who survived the Asian tsunami disaster only to be claimed by no fewer than nine women was today under police protection in hospital as a custody battle raged.

A couple who went to court claiming to be the parents of the infant known only as Baby 81 were today arrested at the hospital after they tried to see the child.

Earlier the court had ordered that Murugupillai and Jenita Jeyarajah should undergo lengthy DNA tests to determine whether they really are the baby's mother and father. The judge ordered that the baby should stay in the hospital until the tests are done, a process which could take more than eight weeks.

The plight of Baby 81, so named because he was the 81st admission to the hospital on the day the tsunami struck, has become a symbol of the disaster’s shattering effect on families in Sri Lanka.

In the days immediately after the tsunami, nine women claimed the boy as their own, though only one couple, the Jeyarajahs, lodged a formal custody claim. They said that documents proving the boy was theirs were swept away by the flood waters.

The Jeyarajahs had hoped to be granted custody of the baby at today’s hearing, although they had said they would submit to any tests the court ordered to prove their parentage.

When told that the child would be put back into hospital care until at least April 20, when the court will reconvene to hear the test results, Jenita beat her chest and cried out that she couldn’t be away from her child that long. Her husband stormed out of court threatening suicide.

The couple then walked about half a mile to the hospital with relatives and friends and forced their way into the ward where Baby 81 is being kept.

"Here is my baby, look, look," cried Jenita, 25, after she stormed into the glass cubicle where the baby is staying for security reasons.

"Please give us our baby," Jenita pleaded with doctors before handing the infant to her husband. She then fell at the feet of the head nurse and pleaded.

"You are a mother, so am I, give me my baby," she said, surrounded by 70 to 100 relatives and friends.

Murugupillai, 31, threatened to kill himself "if I don’t have the baby," as two men stopped him from swallowing some white powder.

Authorities shut the hospital’s gates and called police, fearing the group would try to take the child away. Police came and told the crowd to leave the hospital, which they did peacefully without the baby.

More chaos followed when the 200 hospital staff went on strike alleging that two of them had been assaulted by the crowd. They soon resumed their duties when police promised to investigate.

Police then arrested the Jeyarajahs and two supporters.

"We had no other option but to arrest them because they did assault hospital staff," said W.P Wijeyatilleka, a police officer from Kalmunai. A district judge later released them on bail, with an order to reappear before the court tomorrow.

Earlier, Judge M.P. Mohaideen told the custody hearing that thousands of babies had died in the tsunami, and maybe hundreds of them are missing.

"It’s only after a DNA test that we can be sure that we are correct," he said. Judge Mohaideen added that the other people who had claimed to beBaby 81's parents should report to police and have DNA samples taken too.

"This is very important, in case the DNA test does not match this couple," Judge Mohaideen said. He also ruled that the couple could visit the baby daily, instead of twice a week.

Doctors at the hospital had opposed the baby being handed to the Jeyarajahs without a court ruling, saying that even though the others had not followed up on their initial claims there was no other way to be sure whether the Jeyarajahs were truly his parents.

Baby 81 survived among dead bodies and rubble until he was found by rescuers nine hours after the disaster.

"This baby has suffered terrible losses - loss of familiar faces, familiar sounds and familiar smells," said Anula Nikapota, a child expert from London who has come to Kalmunai to help children recover from the trauma of the tsunami.

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