Police in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, a suburb of India's capital New Delhi, said they have arrested a 26-year-old woman for strangulating her eight-month-old son with a scarf. Police also arrested her husband and father-in-law on charges of criminal conspiracy for placing the child’s body in a sack and dumping it in a pit, the English daily Times of India reported.
Initially, the woman, identified as Hema, told police that her son had died after falling off a bed, but sustained interrogation led to her breaking down and revealing that she had strangled her child with a scarf because she could not feed him and her husband had accused her of bearing the child through an illicit relationship with his elder brother.
She then told her husband and father-in-law that the child had died after a fall from the bed and asked them to save her from the police. Her husband and father-in-law put the child’s body in a jute bag, dumped it in a pit and covered it with cow dung.
Local police said they found the body of the child on 21 August, ten days after the baby had been murdered and suspected the woman of murdering her child. This was confirmed by an autopsy report that said strangulation was the cause of death.
The accused have been arrested and are currently incarcerated.
