Mother Allegedly Drowns Infant Daughter After Family Forces Multiple Abortions For Not Conceiving A Boy

A woman in India who has been arrested for murdering her infant daughter admitted to drowning her child after the family harassed her and forced her to undergo multiple abortions for not conceiving a male child. The 36-year-old woman later cooked up a kidnapping story to cover up the crime, the cops said.

The woman identified as Sapna Bajrang Magdoom, from Mumbai, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, admitted to drowning her three-month-old daughter in a water tank kept in a loft of her home Tuesday. Magdoom initially claimed that an unknown woman came home and kidnapped the child after sedating her, Free Press Journal reported.

Based on Magdoom's complaint about kidnapping, the police started an investigation. "Magdoom had claimed the woman used a handkerchief laced with chloroform to render her unconscious and kidnapped the baby,” an investigating officer said.

After reviewing CCTV footage of the area, the investigators called the infant's parents for an interrogation during which Magdoom confessed the crime, Times Now News reported.

Magdoom had a daughter in 2013, and when she conceived again, her in-laws forced her to undergo multiple abortions after believing each time that the unborn child would be a girl, police said. As prenatal sex determination is banned in India, her in-laws reportedly used Black magic to determine the sex of the unborn child.

However, they allowed her to continue her last pregnancy, believing that it would be a boy. When Magdoom delivered a baby girl in August, her husband's family allegedly boycotted her and she started living with her parents.

The police recovered the child's body from the water tank and said a detailed investigation is underway. Meanwhile, a case has been registered against Magdoom on charges of murder and concealing the corpse.

In October, a woman in India allegedly murdered her newborn at a hospital because she did not want a girl. Cops arrested Lovely Singh from Kolkata for allegedly suffocating her baby with a pillow just nine hours after the child was born. Singh admitted the crime and told the police that she was "heartbroken" that the baby was a girl.