Cops nab Surat woman who threw baby in dustbin to die

SURAT: Police arrested a ‘monster mom’ from Ashwini Kumar Road in Varachha on Sunday who had earlier thrown her newborn girl into a dustbin and left her to die there.
Sonal Rathod (40), a labourer and mother of four children, was nabbed on Mother’s Day, one-and-half-months after the crime. She confessed to the police about her crime and said she did as she did not want to have any more children. The newborn’s body was found from the dustbin near Patel Nagar on March 14.
At first, police had registered an offence against the mother for throwing a dead body. However, during postmortem it was found that the baby had died from head injury. Postmortem also found that the baby girl was strangled to death and later thrown into the dustbin due to which there was head injury as well.
“It is suspected that the newborn suffered head injury when it was thrown into the dustbin by her mother. Police added sections of murder along with abandoning the newborn child in the complaint after getting the postmortem report,” said a Varachha police officer.
Initially, the complaint was lodged by Bhagirathsinh Jadeja, a resident of Kamrej, who was the first to notice the body in the dustbin near his industrial unit. He alerted cops and lodged a complaint.
Police did not have specific lead about the person, who left the body in the dustbin but started door-to-door inquiry around Patel Nagar.
“We questioned residents of the area to share details if they saw any pregnant woman recently. During questioning, we came to know about Rathod. Residents pointed out that she was pregnant but now she is not,” said police.
Since there was no newborn child with her, police detained her. She confessed to delivering the child at home without any help and later dumping it in the dustbin. She did not take any help for delivering the child as she wanted to keep it a secret.
“She had separated from her husband six months ago and was currently living with another man. She did not want another child since she is mother of four children and was not aware if the child was from her husband or some other man,” said police.