Is a baby girl, born on November 9, 2016, at a hospital in Ilkal of Bagalkot district, still alive or did she die within four days of birth?
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will have to find the answer to this question, with the High Court of Karnataka transferring the probe to the agency. The court, on going through the outcome of two investigations, one conducted by the local police and the another by an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) based on the court’s direction, has prima facie found that the police colluded with the accused persons.
A Division Bench of Justice S. Sujatha and Justice H.B. Prabhakara Sastry, in its January 8 order passed at the Dharwad Bench, issued direction to the CBI to conduct the investigation and take action as per the law.
The child’s mother, Shankramma Poojari, knocked on the court’s door with a writ of habeas corpus in July 2017 after the police failed to trace her missing child. She claimed in her petition that she believes her daughter was still alive. She also claimed the child was with an unknown person as her husband, Veeresh, did not want to take responsibility for the child and was, too, behind her disappearance.
The petitioner also alleged that the police, who initially refused to register a case, had forcibly got her signature on a complaint falsely pronouncing the child as dead after four days and settling the issue.
Burning of corpse
However, the police and the doctor at Kathare Nurning Home, Ilkal, claimed that the baby had died on the fourth day after delivery and the dead body was sent to biomedical waste treatment plant to be burnt with other medical waste.
Questioning how a human body could be sent to a biomedical waste treatment plant for burning, the court found a large number of discrepancies in the statements given by the doctor before the court, the police and the ASP. It also found that various witnesses had given different statements during the two investigations.
The court observed that the police and the hospital were “collusive in closing the case” by preparing documents to depict that the child had died.
