BHOPAL:
Police
are preparing to have a newborn's body exhumed to probe allegations that stray dogs killed and partially ate the child in Bhopal's Ayodhya Nagar on Wednesday morning.
The police began investigating the case after a flurry of social media messages. The parents, who are construction labourers, lived with the baby in a shanty in Bilkhiria.
Ayodhya Nagar SHO Mahesh Lilhare said that they carried the baby to a construction site in Ayodhya Nagar on Wednesday morning. The mother fed the baby around 11am, placed him on the ground and went away for a few minutes on some work. When she returned, she found a group of horror-struck locals standing on the spot where she had left the infant.
They told her that a pack of strays had carried him away. The woman went looking for her son and found the
remains
a short distance away. The dogs had eaten the baby's left hand.
The traumatized couple buried the remains and did not report to police, but by Thursday evening, messages about the horror were being circulated on social media. Police managed to get the parents' phone number on Friday, and asked them to come to the police station. The couple arrived with an
affidavit
that they do not want any action in the matter as the child is dead and they have buried him. Police registered a case of unnatural death on the basis of the affidavit and plan to exhume the body.
When police went to their home in Bilkhiria on Friday, they found that the boy's father had fallen ill and was in a hospital. SHO Lilhare said that the parents were not in a condition to record their statements on Friday. Police will speak with them on Saturday and try to find out where they have buried the body so that it can be exhumed. TNN
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