Infant’s body exhumed after ‘infanticide’ alert

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 16

After an anonymous complaint that a man at Kairanwali village in Sirsa had killed his week-old daughter and quickly buried her, the police on Monday exhumed the infant's body and sent it to Maharaja Agrasen Medical College, Agroha, for a postmortem examination. However, the doctors failed to give a conclusive report and sent the viscera to a forensic lab. 

"The doctors, in their report, said there was neither any external injury on the child's body nor any signs of death by strangulation. The cause of the death will be ascertained only after the forensic report," Sirsa SP Hamid Akhtar said.

On Sunday morning, an anonymous call on Childline number 1098 had alleged that Kairanwali village resident Naresh had killed his infant daughter as he wanted a male child. The caller also said Naresh’s wife had given birth to five daughters so far — the first two were alive while two more had died in infancy just like the fifth one.

Questioned by the police, Naresh maintained the child had died after vomiting even though he had shown her to a doctor. He alleged the infanticide allegation against him was "motivated."