Two days after police arrested the father of a 17-day-old child who was buried alive in Villupuram district, her grandfather too has been held for abetment. The grandfather Duraikannu allegedly told his 29-year-old son Varadarajan that he would only bequeath his property to him if he fathered a male child.
On Tuesday, the infant’s body, wrapped in a towel, was exhumed by the police at Thenpennaiar Riverbed in Tirukovilur in front of Revenue officials. Initial investigations revealed that Varadarajan was not happy in having had a baby girl. TOI reports that Varadarajan had told his wife and relatives that if his wife gives birth to a girl, he may not keep the baby. During the wee hours of Tuesday, he snuck out from the house with the infant while his wife was asleep. He had taken the child to the river bed and committed the crime. When his wife Soundarya woke up a little after she was shocked to find her missing baby and raised an alarm.
The locals then launched a search and discovered the body buried in the riverbed. When Varadharajan confessed to his crime, the relatives informed the Tirukovilur police.
Varadarajan confessed to the crime and has been booked under IPC Section 302 (Murder), 315 (Act done with intent to prevent child being born alive or to cause it to die after birth) and 498a (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty).
“Soon after we arrested Varadarajan, he kept saying that it was his father who told him to kill the child,” says an investigating official tells TNM. “We thought he was trying to shift blame initially. But we hauled in the father for questioning and we found that he had threatened to not leave him any property if he had a girl child. Duraikannu admitted to saying this but claims that he did not think that his would actually murder the child. But Duraikannu is clearly responsible for giving his son the motive to commit the murder,” adds the official.
A post-mortem was conducted in the Villupuram Government Medical College and Hospital at Mundiyambakkam and the child’s body was handed over to the family. According to reports, Varadarajan had married Soundarya (21), of Sundaresapuram 15 months ago. The couple had a daughter at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) in Puducherry on October 20.
Source: The News Minute