baby
This is a representational image of a baby at Fort Stewart, Georgia, July 17, 2003. Getty Images/Stephen Morton

A 3-month-old baby died after his mother threw him from the fourth floor of a hospital in the northern Indian city of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Local media reports said the mother was upset over her child's illness since his birth.

The infant, who was born on April 23, was diagnosed with jaundice after birth at the BRD hospital in Gorakhpur. Doctors at the hospital referred him to the King George Medical University (KGMU) after his liver condition deteriorated.

A spokesperson for KGMU told local media that the child was being treated at their facility since May 26 and was showing signs of improvement. The child’s mother was upset with his continued illness, according to the statements of the hospital staff.

The incident came to light when the mother, identified as Shanti Devi, 27, raised an alarm that her child had been stolen from the hospital, local daily the Hindustan Times reported.

“The woman was rigorously quizzed as there were multiple contradictions in her statements. Moreover, she had been spotted carrying the child in her lap at around 5 am in the CCTV footage inside the trauma center building. She later confessed to have thrown the child from the window of the neo-natal intensive care unit on the fourth floor as she was deeply troubled with his suffering,” senior police officer Vikas Chandra Tripathi said.

After the initial investigation, the woman was arrested and charged with murder. Police have sent the child's body for an autopsy and are awaiting the results.

Last week, a 26-year-old woman was arrested for slitting her 14-month-old daughter’s throat in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Local reports said the mother was fed up with the toddler's cranky behavior and decided to kill her. The suspect, identified as Yogita Mukesh Pawar, admitted to killing her daughter Swara.

Police believe the woman felt "harassed by the child’s irritable behavior," deputy commissioner of police Laxmikant Patil was quoted as saying by local daily the Times of India.

RELATED STORIES