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MP ‘miracle baby’ was buried alive by mother who conceived him after rape
The 10-day-old baby was rescued from a shallow grave by a tribal couple in MP’s Barwani
A baby boy, who survived after being buried alive just 10 days after his birth, was put in the shallow grave in Madhya Pradesh’s Barwani by his minor mother who conceived him after rape, investigators said on Thursday.
The suspected rapist, also a minor, was arrested after the girl was traced to a village in Maharashtra.
The infant was found on July 3 by a tribal couple, who were alerted by his cries from a burial ground at Ghus village, about 64 kms from Barwani. The village is not far from the border with Maharashtra.
The baby is admitted to a hospital and will be handed over to the district child welfare committee (CWC), officials said.
Despite stringent rape laws, people in rural areas rarely report sexual assaults to police because of the stigma attached. Activists say people also blame the character of the victim, which puts more pressure on families to hide such incidents.
Barwani superindent of police, Prashant Khare, said the girl’s family hurriedly married her off to a minor boy after discovering her pregnancy. She said she was raped about a year ago.
But her husband, who came to know about the incident, also refused to accept the baby and told her to abandon it, the officer added.
Khare said the “painstaking investigation” took around 20 days.
“It was a shock for us when we saw that the mother was a minor, her husband too was a minor as was the rapist,” he added.
The girl hails from a village of Barwani and lives with with her husband in Sirpur, Maharashtra. Police said she came to her parents house on July 2 and buried the baby in neighbouring Ghus, about 10 km away.
Besides the accused, police have also booked the mother on charges of abandoning the baby and exposing him to danger.
“I didn’t want to kill my baby. I requested a lot but nobody supported me, so buried him in a shallow grave,” police quoted the girl as saying.
The mother told police she wanted to become a teacher but was forced by her parents to leave her studies.
The parents allegedly did not tell her husband that she was carrying a child, the police officer added.
