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Bharatpur: Parents claim deceased infant was a goddess

The death of a two-and-a-half year old girl under mysterious circumstances at Nat Mohalla in Kumher town of Bharatpur district, on Thursday made it difficult for the administration to handle the situation as people flocked to offer prayers at the girl’s samadhi.

Updated on: Sep 19, 2014, 19:35:52 IST
Hindustan Times | By , Bharatpur
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The death of a two-and-a-half year old girl under mysterious circumstances at Nat Mohalla in Kumher town of Bharatpur district, on Thursday made it difficult for the administration to handle the situation as people flocked to offer prayers at the girl’s samadhi. She is reported to have died at about five minutes past midnight.

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First it was rumoured that the girl was observing a state of yogic samadhi (intense meditation), following which a large number of people visited the site and started offering prayers.

However, later, the family members clarified that the girl had declared herself a deity and had also revealed her exact time of death. She had also asked her parents to dress her up as a goddess and bury her in front of their house, said Sri Mati, the girl’s mother.

Kumher sub-divisional officer, Mohan Singh, who rushed to the spot, said prima facie it seemed a natural death but the incident was being investigated.

Bharatpur superintendent of police, Rahul Prakash said, “It appears that the parents might have wanted to earn money by deifying the deceased. It is a backward area and such superstitions are rampant. We have lodged a report under section 174 of CrPC and an inquiry has been initiated into the cause of death and if the parents have illegally earned money at the burial spot.”

Vinod, the girl’s father said that his daughter did not drink milk for one month after she was born. “We took her to Gurgaon from where we were referred to Safdarjung Hospital at Delhi. As her disease could not be identified, we took her to Agra where doctors declared her fit. After that we took her to a saint at Etawah where an old woman declared her as Devi (deity). Even after that we took her to a baba at Sital villge in Alwar, where the girl announced that she had come to the world for a certain period,” he said.

Taking a serious note of the matter, the district administration exhumed the body and sent it for post-mortem. The post-mortem revealed that she died of dysentery.

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