KASARGOD: Police arrest 24-year-old woman for strangling her newborn daughter with an earphone cable in Kasargod on December 16.
The woman has been identified as Shahina Chedakkal who lives near Badiadka Bedakam, said inspector T Uttamdas who investigated the case.
Police said Shahina kept her pregnancy a secret from her family and husband, Shafi. As soon as she gave birth to her daughter on December 16, she allegedly strangled the child with a cable of earphones.
Shafi found the body of the newborn wrapped in a cloth under their bed.
On December 16, Shahina and Shafi went to their neighbour's house to attend a function but she returned home soon.
When Shafi returned home later, he found Shahina profusely bleeding and took her to a hospital, the police said.
The doctors who examined her told Shafi that Shahina was bleeding because she gave birth. When Shafi said he was not aware of her pregnancy, the doctors asked him to check the house.
He found the body of the newborn under the bed with the earphone cable still around its neck, said police.
The Badiadka police registered a case of unnatural death based on a statement from Shafi and sent the body for postmortem at the medical college in Pariyaram. The postmortem report said the girl was killed within hours of being born.
Shafi, who works in a restaurant in Kochi, told police that neither he nor his family was aware that Shahina was pregnant. The couple's firstborn son was one year and two months old.
Shafi told police that his family did ask about the suspected baby bump but Shahina said it could be gas.
When asked about the motive for the murder, Uttamdas said Shahina was embarrassed that she became pregnant three months after giving birth to the first child. "That is what she told us during questioning," said the inspector.
Police have sent samples for a paternity test. This is the second arrest of a mother in three days in connection with cases of maternal filicide.
In another incident, Badiadka police on Tuesday, arrested 25-years-old Sharada of Kattukukke in Perla of Enmakaje panchayat for killing her one-and-half-year-old son by drowning him in a well.
Sharada told police that she threw her son Swathik in a well out of anger because she was constantly harassed by her husband's family. The incident happened on December 4.