Chandigarh: Parents convicted of killing infant by slamming her on floor

The quantum of sentence against the convicts, Pooja and Vishal, residents of Ram Darbar, Chandigarh, will be pronounced on Wednesday

Over four years after an infant girl died after being slammed on the floor by her mother, a local court has convicted the woman and her husband of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The parents claimed it was a natural death, but medical board that autopsied the exhumed body opined that the infant’s death was due to a skull injury. (iStock Photo)

The quantum of sentence against the convicts, Pooja and Vishal, residents of Phase 1, Ram Darbar, who were aged 22 and 23, respectively, at the time of the incident, will be pronounced on Wednesday.

According to police, in August 2018, the couple had an altercation at home, during which Pooja slammed her 25-day-old daughter Nayra on the floor in a fit of rage. The next morning, the couple took the infant to GMCH, Sector 32, where she was declared dead, following which they buried her.

On August 14, 2018, Childline helpline 1098 alerted the police about the incident and inquest proceedings were conducted by the SDM (East) after exhuming the infant’s body from the burial ground.

An autopsy was conducted at GMCH and the medical board opined that the child’s death was caused due to skull injury. Further probe revealed that the girl was killed by her parents and they disposed of the body by burying it.

However, the accused claimed they were innocent.

They claimed that their daughter died naturally, but the police never listened to them. They said they had taken her to the emergency ward of GMCH-32, where she had died and they were trying to locate the doctor who had attended to her.

They also claimed that Pooja’s uncle in connivance of the police had falsely implicated them as he was eyeing their house. The defence counsel also examined Vishal’s mother Usha who deposed that the child was born prematurely and died naturally.

The public prosecutor, meanwhile, argued that the witnesses Khushi (Pooja’s younger sister) and Samina (couple’s neighbour) had confirmed that an altercation had taken place.

Prosecution witness Dr Amandeep Singh, associate professor, department of forensic medicine, GMCH, also said such skull injury could not have been suffered by the child by way of accidental fall.

The court, however, observed that the prosecution had been successful in bringing home the guilt against the accused persons beyond every shadow of reasonable doubt and held them guilty under Sections 304 and 201 of the IPC.