New Delhi: Qatar authorities said that it had identified the parents of the infant who was abandoned last month in a bin at Doha’s airport, which later prompted officials to order departing female passengers to undergo invasive examinations, sparking global outrage.

According to a BBC report, a woman from “an Asian country” dumped the infant and fled abroad and a DNA test has also confirmed that an Asian man was the infant’s father.

Public prosecutors said that efforts are underway to extradite the mother and that she faces 15 years imprisonment as per a statement that called her a “convict”, suggesting she may have been convicted in absentia.

“Investigations revealed that the infant’s mother, who holds the nationality of an Asian country, had a relationship with another person of the nationality of one of the Asian countries,” the statement said.

“The father of the infant admitted he had a relationship with the infant’s mother, and that she had sent him a message and a photo of the newborn infant immediately after her birth,” it added.

“The letter included her saying that she had [abandoned] the infant she had given birth to and fled to her country.”

The incident began after a newborn was found in a plastic bag in a rubbish bin at Hamad International Airport’s departures lounge on October 2. Soon after, an immediate search for the parents were launched, including on 10 planes in the vicinity.

Prosecutors said that officials had also been charged over the invasive exams carried out on women passengers including citizens of Australia, the UK and New Zealand who were on board a Sydney-bound Qatar Airways flight. The passengers complained that they were ordered to disembark, taken to ambulances on the tarmac, and told to remove their underwear for an examination to check for evidence if they had recently given birth.

The women also issued complaints that they were given no information by officials and they did not have an opportunity to provide informed consent.

The incident was highly criticised by the Australian government and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described it as “appalling” and “unacceptable”. To which, his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani, said standard procedures were violated and expressed his “sincerest apology for what some female travellers went through”.