Infant Dies After Being Held Hostage As Parents Could Not Pay For Customary Blessing

An infant in India has tragically died while the child was reportedly held hostage by a man after the parents could not pay him money for his customary blessing.

The shocking incident happened Wednesday in a village in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. The baby boy, who was less than a month old, passed away lying on the lap of the accused while he reportedly refused to give the child back to the parents, Hindustan Times reported.

The accused man, identified as Aulad Ali, belonged to the Pamaria community who sings and dances at special occasions like weddings and childbirth. According to the local custom, people seek blessings for their newborns and give them alms in return.

Ali visited the family of Mampi Sarkar, who gave birth to triplets on Oct. 29, to get the customary alms. He blessed the three children and reportedly demanded $20 (INR 1,500) from the family. The family could not meet his demands as they were poor. Ali reportedly then held one of the children hostage in his lap for around three hours and did not allow the mother to feed him. The child eventually died on his lap, and the villagers assaulted him before handing him over to the police, News NCR reported.

"The accused has been arrested on the basis of a complaint lodged by the Sarkar family. He has been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder,” an investigating officer said.

The victim's mother said the child had a fever and Ali did not allow her to breastfeed the child even after she pleaded with him several times. Meanwhile, Ali accused the family's claims were baseless. “It is a baseless allegation that I kept the baby hostage for money. Local people thrashed me brutally after the death of the baby and snatched ₹5,000 [$67] from me,” he said.

In July, a transgender woman in India was arrested for burying a 3-month-old baby alive after the child's parents refused to pay the customary gift money following her birth. The suspect, identified as Kanu Chogule, kidnapped the child, who was sleeping with the parents and buried her in a marshy area. Chogule later confessed the crime and the police recovered the child's body from the marsh.