Dumped in well by mother within 2 hours of birth in Madhya Pradesh, girl survives

BHOPAL: A newborn girl, abandoned within a couple of hours of birth by her mother, miraculously survived and was rescued after being lowered into a 20-ft-deep dry borewell in Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha district.

She was lowered into the dry well in a makeshift cloth sling, likely breaking her fall.

The 22-year-old mother, who brought her into this world around 7am on Saturday and left her to die in the dry well less than 2 hours later, was arrested.

The infant was found in Parsari village in Kurwai police station limits on Friday morning, when a local youth, happening to pass by the well, heard faint cries from 20 ft beneath the surface and immediately alerted the police on Dial 112. Police teams rushed to the spot, pulled the baby out and shifted her first to a local healthcare facility.

State continues to top country in infant abandonment cases

Thereafter, she was taken to the district hospital, where doctors said the infant was stable and improving.

According to investigating officers, the woman, who works in Indore, had concealed her pregnancy from her family following an alleged relationship. During questioning, she confessed to dumping her newborn, telling the police that she tied one end of a pair of leggings, placed the infant inside it and lowered her into the well.

The improvised sling appears to have prevented a direct impact, the police said. "Our first priority was to rush the infant to the hospital. Thereafter a case was registered... By the grace of god the infant survived," Kurwai SHO Pankaj Geete told TOI.

While the infant, in this case, survived by the barest of margins, the incident itself put the spotlight back on a deeper malaise - that of abandonment of newborn girls.

Worryingly, only a fraction of such cases end in recovery and rescue.

According to the NCRB's Crime in India 2023 report, Madhya Pradesh recorded 140 cases of infant abandonment last year, the highest in the country, out of 653 cases nationwide. The state has consistently reported high numbers, with 187 cases in 2019, 186 in 2020, 159 in 2021 and 174 in 2022.

The data also shows 20 cases of foeticide and 12 cases of infanticide in the state in 2023, underlining the continuing vulnerability of newborn girls. TNN
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