Officials muddle the water on death in Sishu Vihar

Her parents may not have provided for her well, but at least they did not kill her. The State on the other hand, which is sworn to protect the weak and the vulnerable, has done that.

The child rights organisation Balala Hakkula Sangham (BHS) has claimed that the women and child welfare department has lied to the police about the circumstances that led to the death of an infant on July 14 this year.

The four-month-old baby girl had been taken away by the police from a couple who sold balloons at traffic signals, as part of their Operation Muskan. The baby weighed only 1.4 kg and was undernourished and the parents were deemed unable to take care of her. She was handed over to the Shishu Vihar in Yousufguda.

After two days of being in their care, officials from the women and child welfare department said the baby started bleeding from her nose. She was taken to Niloufer Hospital, where, shockingly, she was declared dead on arrival.

The postmortem was conducted at Gandhi Hospital in Musheerabad.

Achyuth Rao, BHS’s honorary president, on Wednesday claimed this is not the whole truth. He said the baby had sustained a major head injury, which ultimately led to her death. He also criticised Shishu Vihar for sending the baby to Niloufer in an auto with an NGO volunteer. “Why couldn’t it send the baby

to the hospital in one of its own ambulances? And why wasn’t she taken there by a doctor?” asked Mr Rao. The first information report registered at SR Nagar Police station does not mention any head injury.

Ch Naresh, the subinspector at SR Nagar who is investigating the case, said the postmortem report from Gandhi Hospital indicates a head injury.

“The report says the baby had died due to haemorrhage. There seems to have been a head injury. We have asked for information about how this injury might have occurred,” he said.

There are conflicting versions as to how the head injury might have occurred. Achyuth Rao

said someone in the Shishu Vihar dropped the baby on the floor while feeding her.

“The officials at Shishu Vihar are lying about being unaware of the injury. Also, the postmortem report says the baby was starved. This means she was not fed properly,” he added.

However, Shanti Laxmi Bai, the district welfare officer for Hyderabad, says the injury couldn’t have happened within Shishu Vihar. “We have checked all footage of CCTV cameras from that day. We didn't see the baby fall in this footage. It could have happened at Niloufer Hospital,” she said. (Since the child was declared dead on arrival, this doesn’t quite fit the facts.)