CHENNAI: A man who dumped the body of his seven-month-old boy, who succumbed to heart ailments at the Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children on Wednesday night, into the Cooum was arrested on Thursday. He was later let go on station bail after a warning, said the police.
The police said the boy had been undergoing treatment for heart ailments for the past two months and died at the hospital around midnight on Wednesday and his father dumped the body into the Cooum. The fire and rescue department personnel recovered the body on Thursday afternoon.
According to the Thousand Lights police, the boy’s father Santhosh Kumar (29), a daily wage labourer, was living with his wife and newborn in Kodambakkam. After the boy’s death, the hospital authorities handed over the body to the parents. Santhosh Kumar, who was in an inebriated state, took the body in a bag and dumped it into the Cooum river at around midnight. When he returned to the hospital, his relatives questioned him about the body and he told them what he had done. The family members then began assaulting him and Santhosh Kumar took to his heels.
Following this, the police registered a case under section 318 (concealment of birth by secret disposal of dead body) and along with the Egmore fire and rescue personnel began searching for the boy’s body. They retrieved the body at noon on Thursday. After the postmortem, the body was handed over to the family.