Daijiworld Media Network - Ghaziabad
Ghaziabad, Dec 8: In a chilling incident, a 22-year-old woman from West Bengal was arrested for allegedly killing her newborn daughter just 45 minutes after delivering her at her sister’s house in Ghaziabad, police said.
The woman, identified as Jharna, reportedly threw the infant from the terrace, aiming for an empty plot behind the house. Instead, the baby fell onto a neighbour’s roof, leading to the discovery of the crime.
The matter came to light around 6.30 am on December 5 when Vinay Rawat, a resident of Rakesh Marg in Nehru Nagar, spotted the body of the newborn on his terrace and alerted the police. “The baby appeared to have been born only a few hours earlier,” said ACP (Nandgram) Upasana Pandey.
Neighbours informed police that one Shankar Sen, originally from West Medinipur, was living in the rented house, and his sister-in-law Jharna — who was pregnant — had arrived a month earlier. When officers reached the house, they found Jharna with her sister Savita.
During questioning, Jharna first claimed that poverty prevented her from going to a hospital. She said the baby was “not breathing” after delivery and that she and her sister attempted to dispose of what they believed to be a stillborn child in a nearby vacant plot. However, the autopsy report contradicted her version.
According to police, the doctor who performed the post-mortem confirmed that the infant was alive when she suffered fatal injuries. “Her skull was fractured and her arm and leg bones were broken. These injuries occurred within an hour of her birth,” the doctor stated.
Faced with the findings, Jharna broke down and admitted she had thrown the child alive from the terrace.
Police said the woman, married to Badal from Darbhanga for the past 18 months, had been desperate for a male child. She confessed that she underwent a sex determination test five months ago at a private nursing home in Darbhanga, which revealed she was carrying a girl.
She had also attempted to abort the pregnancy after consulting relatives and taking medicines when doctors refused due to medical risks. Her health later deteriorated.
Jharna arrived at her sister’s home in Nehru Nagar on November 14. On December 5, she went into labour around dawn. Despite Savita urging her to go to a hospital, she refused and delivered the child at home around 6 am. “She said she panicked and feared informing her husband that she had delivered a girl,” ACP Pandey said.
The newborn fell nearly 20 feet before landing on Rawat’s roof. The body was found wrapped in polythene behind a water tank.
Police have booked Jharna under Section 91 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for causing the death of a child immediately after birth. Statements of her sister and brother-in-law have been recorded, and a DNA test will be conducted. Efforts are on to contact her husband in Darbhanga, police said.