Baby girl’s death raises suspicion, parents held

Tirupur: A middle-aged couple have landed in trouble for secretly burying the body of their new-born daughter, who died after they took her away from the government hospital in Tirupur while undergoing treatment a couple of days ago.
Police have picked up the couple - Shanmugam, of J K J Colony at Palladam and his wife Dhanalakshmi, of Udumalpet - for interrogation.
An investigation officer said Dhanalakshmi had delivered her fourth child in the government hospital at Palladam on June 12. “Since the baby girl was found to be weak, doctors there referred her to the government hospital in Tirupur.”
While the child was taken to the government hospital in Tirupur, Dhanalakshmi left the hospital with the kid, who was undergoing treatment in the neonatal ward, without informing anybody. It was the couple’s third girl child.
When the hospital staff members found that Dhanalakshmi was missing with her baby, they traced her address and informed the health staff at Palladam to check on her. “When the hospital staff visited her house, the baby was not there. Dhanalakshmi told them that the infant had died when they were travelling back home from the hospital. The health staff alerted us immediately,” the officer with Palladam police station said.
According to Dhanalakshmi, the officer said, she had hidden the infant in a bag and sneaked out of the hospital to avoid being stopped by the hospital staff members. “She said the baby had died when she reached home.”
Scared, the couple buried the body of the infant on an isolated spot near Kalivelampatti diversion road, the officer said quoting Dhanalskhmi.
The Palladam police have picked up both Shanmugam, a private bus driver, and Dhanalskhmi and are interrogating the two. The officer said they would take the couple to the spot where they buried the body and exhume the same. “A postmortem will performed to find out the cause of death. Meanwhile, the interrogation of the two will continue,” the officer said.