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Chennai woman confesses to slamming her 18-day-old baby to death, arrested

Weeks after an 18-day-old infant was declared dead under suspicious circumstances, the baby’s mother has confessed that she killed her baby girl as she was angry at her husband. The police arrested 23-year-old Celestina Mary from her house in Kasimedu on Wednesday after questioning her.

According to a police officer in Kasimedu Police station, Celestina had taken her baby girl to a nearby hospital on November 12 with complaints of choking. She informed the doctors in the hospital that she was feeding her baby when she choked and began gasping for breath. The baby, however, had died by the time she reached the hospital and hence was declared brought dead by the doctors there. The police was alerted and the Kasimedu police registered a case under section 174 CrPC (suspicious death) and sent the body to Government Stanley Medical College and Hospital for postmortem.

However, in the autopsy report that was received by the police on Tuesday, it became clear that the baby did not die because of choking. The report stated that the baby died due to heavy internal bleeding in its head. This led to the police to question Celestina once again on Wednesday. It was on Wednesday that the gory details of the crime came to light. Celestina confessed to the police that she had killed her baby since she was angry at her husband Sathyaraj, who is a daily wage labourer. Celestina and Sathyaraj got married two years ago and have another daughter who is 1.5 years old.  

“Her husband had another wife, with whom he has a 3-year-old child. When he married Celestina, he had promised that he would leave his first wife. But recently Celestina found out that he still visits the other woman and occasionally stays over. Angered by this, she grabbed the baby by her feet and slammed it on the floor twice, causing severe internal bleeding in the head,” the police officer told TNM.

The existing case under section 174 CrPC has now been altered to 302 IPC (Murder). Celestina has been remanded to judicial custody. 

Source: The News Minute