- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE plight of the girl child in India came to the fore again this weekend when residents of a village in the eastern Indian state of Bihar rescued a newborn baby girl after her mother buried her alive in darkness. The infant was admitted to a government hospital where she is recovering.
On Saturday (10), a woman identified as Laxami Devi, a resident of the state’s Lakhisarai district, was burying her newborn baby when her cry caught the attention of another woman nearby called Asha Devi who then raised an alarm, Gulf News reported citing police sources.
Local villagers then rushed to the spot and rescued the baby which had fallen unconscious by then. She was wrapped in a blanket pressed down bricks from above. Laxami Devi was reportedly caught.
“I was walking on the roof of my house when I saw a woman digging a trench and a baby lying near it crying loudly. I got suspicious and raised an alarm. By the time we reached the spot, she had buried the baby but we caught the woman,” Asha Devi told the police.
Police said they arrested the woman and were investigating the matter. The baby was sent to the special newborn care unit at the local government hospital and she was reportedly safe.
“The baby appears to be six-seven days old and very weak but she is out of danger now,” Dr Rakesh Kumar, who is treating the baby, was quoted as saying. He said a nurse was taking care of the baby.
Bihar recently saw a series of incidents in which baby girls were mistreated, sometimes even causing their death. Recently, a woman from the state’s Samastipur district killed her six-day-old girl by dumping her into the safety tank of the toilet.
Another baby girl was found buried in Bihar’s Banka district as she was blind. She was also rescued by the local villagers.
These incidents happen despite the government launching campaigns to save baby girls and end gender discrimination. Bihar’s sex ratio in 2013-15 was 916 females per 1,000 males, said Indian government sources.
