Hyderabad Cop Stops 4-day-old Baby Girl From Being Buried Alive, Infanticide Suspected

Timely action by police saved a four-day-old baby girl from being buried alive at an open ground in Hyderabad by her relatives who assumed that she was dead. The incident happened near the Jubilee Bus Station on Thursday. Police sources said some local autorickshaw drivers after noticing two persons along with the baby grew suspicious and alerted police. Police found that the baby was alive and shifted her to a state-run hospital, the sources said, adding that she was doing fine.

However, no case was registered in connection with the incident as her grandfather presumed that the baby had died as she did not move and they wanted to bury the "body" instead of taking it to Karimnagar--their native place, a police official said.

“Our constable S Venkata Ramakrishna, along with another cop, rushed there and found a young man was digging a pit, while a middle-aged man holding the infant wrapped in a towel standing beside him. An old woman was standing at a distance,” West Marredpally police inspector A Srinivasulu was quoted as saying by HT. Though probe is still on, the police did not rule out the possibility that the infant was being buried alive because she was a girl.

The baby was brought to Hyderabad two days ago and taken to a hospital for treatment of some genital problem, the official said, adding they were reportedly told by the doctors that the baby would not survive. Meanwhile, they were informed that the condition of the baby's mother had become serious and on the way to the bus-stand they tried to bury the baby thinking that the child had died, the official said.

Situation for daughters of India has been poor. India's gender ratio, or the number of females per 1,000 males, was 896 in the period of 2015-17, down from 898 in 2014-16 and 900 in 2013-15. The number was 943 in the last census of 2011. In 2017, police found nearly 20 aborted fetuses dumped in plastic bags in the western state of Maharashtra.

(With agency inputs)