Mocked for having child in 40s, father kills newborn in Bengal’s Jalpaiguri, arrested

A 47-year-old daily wage earner and his wife have been arrested for killing their sixth child, a newborn girl, in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, in what police said could be a crime committed after being ridiculed by neighbours for being older parents.

Dilip Chakraborty and his wife Suniti, 42, who are residents of Cooch Behar district, were taken into custody on Monday night after local residents told the police that the baby was killed by them.

They were produced in a court in Jalpaiguri on Tuesday, which sent them to three days of police custody.

“The Chakrabortys have three daughters and two sons, and also a grandchild from her eldest daughter. One of the possibilities is that they were being taunted by neighbours and villagers for giving birth to a child at an advanced age,” said a police officer of Maynaguri police station.

Police are also exploring whether the fact that the child was a girl could have led to the crime.

Killing and abandoning baby girls are common practice in large parts of India, where a preference for sons runs deep. Many women, especially in poor rural families, face abuse for giving birth to girls.

“We are investigating the matter further,” Jalpaiguri’s superintendent of police Amitabha Maiti said.

The body of the baby, less than a week old, was found with her throat was slit in a water body on Monday morning in Kasirdanga village in Septibari II gram panchayat under Maynaguri police station. The water body is close to the residence of Chakraborty’s cousin, Ratan Mukherjee, where Suniti went to deliver the child.

Police believe the baby was killed on Sunday night.

Nanda Kumar Dutta, the inspector-in-charge of Maynaguri police station, said while speaking to reporters Dilip informed the police that his daughter’s body was in the water body.

Dutta also said that the couple has confessed the crime.