A 27-year-old woman has confessed to the police that owing to extreme poverty, she killed her five-day-old daughter at Ramanathapuram in Mottanoothu panchayat.
She was arrested along with her mother-in-law and charged with murder on Thursday.
The police exhumed the child’s body in the presence of revenue, health and social welfare officers and ordered a post-mortem by a team of doctors from the government hospital.
The shocking incident came to light after some neighbours asked the woman about the whereabouts of the newborn as there was no sign of the baby.
Police said that Suresh, 34, a mason, married Kavita 12 years ago and they had two girls, aged 10 and 8. Kavita delivered a girl on February 26. After two days, the mother and the newborn were discharged.
It has come to light that Suresh’s mother expressed unhappiness about Kavita delivering another girl child. She reportedly told her daughter-in-law to kill the baby, a woman police officer who conducted the probe said.
On the night of March 2, the woman and her mother-in-law administered milk laced with poison to the baby. Under cover of darkness, the duo buried the body near their home, police said.
Neighbours suspicious
When the neighbours enquired, Kavita gave evasive replies. A young woman from the village alerted ChildLine, following which a team visited the hamlet and informed the Rajadhani police station.
After recording their statement, both Kavita and her mother-in-law Chellammal were arrested and produced before a judicial magistrate court, which sent them to judicial custody.
ChildLine officials have been conducting sensitisation programmes about the cradle baby scheme by the State government along with the Social Welfare Department. R. Sasikala, working with an NGO in Usilampatti, Madurai district, urged the government to be proactive and monitor women who had delivered recently and newborns by periodically visiting their dwellings.
Last month, two cases of female infanticide were reported in Usilampatti.
