MARGAO: How “inhuman” can a parent especially a mother be to her newborn? In recent months, the State has been reporting a surge in “inhuman” incidents wherein newborns have been abandoned at secluded places and left to die.
There have been eight such incidents in which the parents were identified in only two cases, while in one the dead newborn was found.
Auda Viegas of Bailancho Ekvott and who looks after the One Stop Centre at Margao lamented that what was happening in Rajasthan earlier is now happening in Goa and pointed out that it is not only a girl child that is abandoned but even baby boys are thrown out in the nature.
She pointed out that in one case, dogs had not only chewed off one arm of the baby abandoned in Siridao but the infant was taken from the place where it was abandoned to another place where it was finally found.
In the recent case at Cuncolim, a healthy male newborn was killed immediately after his birth by none other than the father as the maternal grandmother had gone to dispose the placenta and clothes used to clean the baby. The victim as well as the accused both are next door neighbours in the Cuncolim Industrial Estate and while the elder two sisters of the victim along with the mother would go to work the whole day, the victim who is only 15 years old used to be alone at home.
That is when her neighbor from Jharkhand befriended her. He used to even share lunch with her by eating from the same plate and he also promised to marry her after claiming to have fallen in love with her. The two became intimate and the girl conceived but her mother claimed that she was not aware of the pregnancy till the child was born.
The infant’s father apparently twisted the infant’s neck to kill him and then dumped it in the canal passing through the industrial estate. The body was found by another couple who had gone to the canal to bathe as is the normal practice there.
Incidentally, the police have arrested the infant’s father along with his roommate, who helped in destroying the evidence though he did not have sex with the minor child.
Auda was all praise for the police specially Police Inspector Therron D’Costa, who literally camped in the industrial estate for a whole day to solve the case.
“It is rare to see police personnel working like this and I must congratulate the DySP and SP for their supervision of the case,” she said.
While pointing out that abortion is an available option to any rape victim, she appealed to the people not to abandon new born babies in this manner as it amounts to infanticide.
