A 24-year-old Ghatkopar woman was arrested on Saturday for dumping her newborn daughter in a dustbin, where the baby was ravaged by rats the entire night before police finally found her.
“We have not been getting along for the last two years. Though we live in the same house, we have not had physical relations since then. My parents, suspecting something amiss, had inquired with her about her swelling tummy. But she told us a story about missing her periods,” said Kejal’s.
“One day, my parents saw that her swelling had gone down, but she said it was the result of medicines that she had taken a few days ago.”
Naturally, the family was shocked when the police came knocking on their door to tell them that Suraiyya had left her baby to die in a dustbin.
When the Ghatkopar police found the one-day-old infant on September 21, she was severely injured and had several rat bite wounds on her arms. Immediately, a team led by Manisha Jadhav, sub-inspector of Ghatkopar police station, rushed to the spot.
“We took charge of the baby, as she was alive, and admitted her to Rajawadi Hospital. She was badly bitten by rats,” recalled Jadhav. The infant was later shifted to Sion hospital.
When the police started investigation to find out who the mother was, they contacted all midwives in the area. “We contacted all the local midwives and also probed in and around the area, but we did not get information about any woman being pregnant around that time,” said Chandra Kant Puri, police inspector of Ghatkopar police station. “But on September 23, we got a call from a woman saying that she suspected her neighbor, Kejal Suraiyya, to be the child’s mother.”
On subjecting Kejal to medical examination, the police found out that she had indeed delivered a baby around September 21. Finally, she confessed to the crime. She then revealed that she had given birth to the baby at her in-laws’ house when no one was around. Soon after the delivery, she dumped the child in a nearby dustbin.
Kejal suspected that her husband had an affair, and after frequent arguments over this, the two had stopped talking. Kejal had taken up a job in a Thane beauty parlor.
“When she came to know that she was pregnant with another man’s child, she figured out that she did not have enough money even for an abortion,” said Puri.
“She decided to give birth and dump the baby. We have arrested her and booked her under Sections 317 (exposure and abandonment of child under 12 years by parent or person) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code,” said Puri.
