TIRUPUR: A six-year-old girl, who was allegedly abandoned by her mother Dr Shailaja in Avinashi near Tirupur district on December 25, died in a private hospital on Monday evening.
Police said that the doctor was in the throes of severe depression, unable to make ends meet after her clinic in Bengaluru closed some months ago, when she decided to end her life and her child’s.
39-year-old Shailaja, a resident of Bengaluru, had struggled to find work in recent months and survived on her father’s pension for a while. In a state of severe depression, police said she decided to kill herself and her child and travelled to Tirupur city.
She reached Sevur near Avinashi and, according to police, claimed to have fed the child a full bottle of cough medicine. When the child fell unconscious and she left her near a recycling unit in Sevur, police said. Residents, who saw the child being left behind, called for help.
The child was first sent to the Tirupur General Hospital for treatment and later shifted to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital. Meanwhile, residents found Shailaja wandering near the Sevur bus stand and alerted the police who immediately secured her.
Police said that during interrogation she told them she had been married to one Muthusamy (40), a native of Thanjavur, but the couple had divorced five years ago.
Unable to feed her child, she had decided to end their lives. She claimed to have consumed poison.
Finding her physical and mental health unstable, she was also taken to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital that day and booked under provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act.
The child was later shifted to a private hospital in Coimbatore for treatment but died Monday evening, having suffered serious brain damage, police said.
The postmortem examination will be conducted on Tuesday and based on its findings, the case against Shailaja, who is still at CMCH, might be altered to one of murder, police added.