BALANGIR: In a shocking incident, a three-year-old girl reportedly spent two days with her mother’s lifeless body in their house at Sagarpada in Balangir town. All the while she was under the assumption that her mother was asleep.
When police arrived at the house on Monday morning, the child was found sitting next to her mother’s body. The deceased was identified as Kuni Naik of Indira Nagar. She used to work as domestic help in the locality and lived with her only daughter in a one-room rented house near the Shiva temple in Sagarpada.
The 32-year-old Kuni’s landlord Subhendu Hota said he saw the girl playing outside the house on Sunday. As Kuni used to frequently fall sick, he asked the child about her mother. The girl reportedly told him that she was sleeping. “On Monday morning, the girl told some of our neighbours that insects were coming out of her mother’s mouth. Panicked, the neighbours informed us and we immediately rushed to the spot. Since foul smell was emanating from the room, we alerted the local police,” he said.
Hota further informed that Kuni rented his house one and a half years back. “The woman told me that she was disowned by her parents and in-laws. She used to work as domestic help in several households in the area to eke out a living.”
A preliminary investigation revealed that the woman died around two days back. Since then, the girl was starving without any food. Balangir sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Tofan Bag said police rushed to the house and rescued the girl besides seizing the woman’s partially decomposed body. The woman’s husband had died three years back following which she was living alone with her child.
“Though the woman was ailing, she continued to work as a domestic help neglecting her health. It is suspected that she died due to her illness,” Bag said.
While the girl was produced before the child welfare committee and sent to the special adoption agency, an investigation is underway to ascertain the exact cause of the woman’s death, the SDPO added.