Newborn Baby's Partially Eaten Body Found Near Gas Agency, Search On For Mother

A newborn baby's body was found abandoned near a gas agency in India on Tuesday. The police said the body had been partially eaten by stray dogs.

Staff working for the gas agency in the northern state of Punjab saw the canines feeding on the body, local media Jagran.com reported [Google Translate showed]. They then informed the police who arrived at the scene and took the remains to a nearby hospital.

Authorities said the gender of the newborn could not be established due to the condition in which it was found.

The police believe the newborn had been dumped somewhere else, but the stray dogs picked up the infant, and brought it near the gas station. Local media reported the body of the child was wrapped in a cloth.

“The body is kept in the mortuary of GMSH-16. Doctors have expressed their inability to identify the gender as the body is partially eaten. Efforts are on to identify the suspects who abandoned it. It is not established whether the child was stillborn or died after being abandoned," a police officer told The Indian Express.

Authorities have begun questioning eye-witnesses and people in the area for any leads as to who might have dumped the baby. The police have also checked nearby hospitals for information on pregnant women and those who had recently given birth. However, so far police have found no lead in the case.

Last month in the southern state of Kerala, a woman was arrested for allegedly killing her newborn by throwing the baby into a pond. The incident came to light after the woman was hospitalized following post-delivery bleeding. When doctors attended to the woman, they found she had recently given birth. When they did not see the newborn with her, the hospital staff alerted the police. It was later found that the woman had killed her child. The fire and rescue service personnel arrived at the pond and recovered the newborn's body. The baby was found covered in a cloth, the police said at the time. The woman's husband told the authorities he was not aware of her pregnancy.