Suspected female infanticide: Baby’s body exhumed in TN village

TIRUVANNAMALAI: Suspecting infanticide, officials exhumed the body of a one-day-old baby girl in Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu on Saturday and conducted postmortem on it.
The baby was the third child of J Davamoorthy, 30, of Irumbuli and his wife, Priya, 24. The couple have a five-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. Davamoorthy is a farmer.
Priya gave birth to a baby girl at Kalasamuthiram primary health centre on Wednesday.After delivery, Priya went home with the child. The next day, the baby was brought back to the PHC with complaints of breathing difficulties.
The newborn was referred to Vellore Government Medical college and Hospital where she was declared “brought dead”. The body was buried in a burial ground at Irumbuli on Friday.
Kalasamuthiram PHC medical officer C Akshitha lodged a complaint with the Kannamangalam police raising suspicion over the baby’s death.
According to Akshitha, Priya’s husband and mother-in-law gave a statement that they had fed the newborn with cowmilk. Cowmilk would cause digestive and breathing difficulties in newborns and would even lead to death, she said.
Acting on the complaint, the Kannamangalam police registered a case under Section 174 (unnatural death) of the CrPC . The body was exhumed in the presence of revenue officials, including Polur tahsildar Jayavel .
A medical team, led by medical officer Kamalakannan of Tiruvannamalai Government Medical College and Hospital, conducted postmortem. The body was buried after postmortem.
“We are waiting for postmortem report. We are questioning the family members,” Kannamangalam police inspector R Hemavathi told TOI.