Mother, stepfather held for ‘killing’ 9-month-old in Patiala

The couple was rounded-up by police, following which, they confessed to strangulating the child with a piece of cloth on June 24 and dumping the body in Bhakhra canal.

A nine-month-old baby was allegedly strangulated and dumped into the Bhakhra canal by his mother and stepfather at Patran in Patiala on Monday.

Representative image

The accused have been identified as Harwinder Singh, 37, and Manisha, 22, of Bilaspur in Himachal Pardesh.

SHO Ranbir Singh said that both the accused have been arrested and they have confessed to committing the crime.

The SHO said that Harwinder, who is a combine driver, had came in contact with Manisha and expressed his wish to get married to her.

“But Manisha was already married and had a 9-month old child Ajit from the marriage. She was estranged from her husband. Manisha came at Harwinder’s village and the two got married in June,” the SHO said.

The crime came to light when Harwinder’s neighbour Vicky Singh informed the police about it.

“The complainant told police that Harwinder had introduced the child to him. A few days later, the accused had confided in him that he plans to eliminate the child. Following this, the child went missing,” SHO Ranbir said.

“The couple was rounded-up by police, following which, they confessed to strangulating the child with piece of cloth on June 24 and dumping the body in Bhakhra main line canal at Khanauri,” he said.

Body of the infant is yet to be recovered.

A case was registered against the two under Sections 302 (punishment of murder) and 201 (destruction of evidences) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).