Kottayam: A woman and her 15-year-old daughter have been arrested by the Kerala police for killing a newborn baby in Kanjirappally of Kottayam district. The woman, who lives at Edakkunnam, has told the police that she decided to kill her sixth child, a three-day-old boy, due to financial crisis and fearing societal ridicule.
After being arrested, the woman has been admitted to the General Hospital at Kanjirappally for post-delivery treatment. Her husband is a daily-wager. He used to work as a clerk at a lawyer's office.
The woman, who is differently abled, forced her eldest daughter, a class 10 student, drown the baby in the water in a can, according to the confession made by the girl to the police. "My mother asked me to hold the baby under water. I repeatedly asked if it was necessary. My mother asked me whether I would take care of the baby," the girl was quoted as saying by the police.
The girl was arrested on Friday and arraigned as the second accused. She has been remanded in an observation home for girls in Kozhikode after presenting her before the Juvenile Justice Board.
The woman's second son is a Class 5 student, while the third and fourth daughters are in Class 2 and LKG, respectively. The youngest boy is two years old.
After the arrest of their mother and sister, the children have been separated from the family. While the elder boy has been sent to a care home at Injiyani, the girls were lodged at a shelter at Vandanpathal. The toddler has been put under the care of the Sishu Bhavan at Thottakkad.
The eldest child, now under arrest, had been taking care of her younger siblings since the mother was physically challenged. The family had been living in a rented house with just one bedroom near Mukkali at Edakkunnam in Kanjirappally.
The woman reportedly told the police that she had been suffering from abnormal menstruation and hence realised about her pregnancy several months late. She gave birth to the six child at their home around 2 am on December 5. The father cut the umbilical cord while the mother herself bathed the newborn.
Though the other children were also sleeping in the same room, they came to know of the birth of their little brother only the next morning.
