Why a woman strangled her newborn with earphone cables, and why a court let her off

Kasaragod: On December 15, 2020, a family in Kasaragod's Badiadka was stunned to find a bloody bundle under their bed. It was the body of a just-born girl, with an earphone cable around her neck. The infant had been strangled to death just hours earlier.

What transpired in the hours and months leading up to the murder remains a mystery, and what unfolded after the crime was equally unsettling.

On January 7, 2021 — 23 days after the infant was found dead —Badiadka Police arrested the child's 26-year-old mother for maternal filicide, or the act of a mother killing her own child.

Nearly four years later, on December 12, 2024, an additional sessions court in Kasaragod acquitted the woman despite the prosecution claiming they had proven beyond reasonable doubt that she killed the child.

A Manoj, the Additional Sessions Judge-I, let off the woman because the police failed to conduct a psychiatric evaluation after her arrest. "We proved in court that she murdered the child, and we proved the child was hers. But she was acquitted due to a procedural lapse by the investigation team," said public prosecutor Lohithakshan Edayillam.

The woman’s defence counsel, Adv Shafi Mainadi, said he emphasised in court that the police had not conducted the psychiatric evaluation to determine her state of mind despite the government gynaecologist recommending such an examination.

According to the police, the woman, a homemaker, became pregnant just three months after giving birth to her first child, a boy. Embarrassed by the pregnancy, she kept it a secret from her husband and family. "That's what she told us during questioning," said an officer who investigated the case.

During the probe, her husband told the police that his family had asked his wife about her suspected baby bump, but she dismissed it, claiming it could be gas. Public prosecutor Lohithakshan Edayillam said it was hard to believe she could hide her pregnancy from her husband, who was then working as a salesman in Kochi. "It is still a mystery," he said, when contacted after the judgment.

On December 15, 2020, the day the woman gave birth, the family attended a function at a relative's house to mark the death anniversary of a close relative. Police said the couple went to the relative's house in the neighbourhood, but the woman came home early. "When the husband and his mother returned home, they said the woman was bleeding profusely," said the officer.

They immediately took her to the General Hospital in Kasaragod. The gynaecologist did the scanning and concluded that the woman had just given birth. When the husband said he was not aware that his wife was pregnant, the doctors asked them to go and search the house. The husband and his mother found the bundle of grief under the bed.

Phillip J Resnick, a world-recognised expert in forensic psychiatry, and Director of forensic psychiatry at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, had coined the term neonaticide to describe the murder of an infant within the first 24 hours of life. "Almost all neonaticides are committed by mothers," Resnick and Susan Hatters-Friedman, a forensic and perinatal psychiatrist, wrote on 'child murder by mothers', published in the 'World Psychiatry' journal in October 2007. "Neonaticidal mothers are often young, unmarried women with unwanted pregnancies who receive no prenatal care," the paper said.

After her arrest on January 7, 2021, she immediately approached the additional sessions court for bail. The court rejected her bail plea on January 12. She moved the court again for bail on January 19.

She told the court that the prosecution's "story is unbelievable and fabricated by her husband's family". According to court documents, she told the judge that when she cried because of the labour pain, her husband's family was not ready to take her to the hospital and "on knowing that they would be in trouble, they created a false story".

The court dismissed her bail plea for the second time on January 28. Later, she got bail from the High Court after 90 days.

But during the trial, her lawyer highlighted a procedural lapse by the police. "The gynaecologist who certified the woman’s pregnancy had also written in the same certificate that a psychiatric evaluation should be conducted," said the woman’s counsel, Adv Shafi Mainadi. "The court accepted our argument," he said.

The prosecutor said the investigating team had sought her police custody from judicial custody, claiming they needed to collect evidence and conduct a psychiatric evaluation. However, during her time with the police, she did not exhibit any signs of mental illness, and the officer decided to drop the idea of taking her to a psychiatrist, he said.

Higher courts have repeatedly emphasised the need for conducting psychiatric evaluations of the accused soon after arrest to determine their mental state at the time of the crime, said Adv Lohithakshan Edayillam.

During the trial, the husband's mother and sister had turned hostile, but that did not affect the prosecution's argument, he said. "We scientifically proved the infant belonged to the couple and also how she was killed," he said. However, the procedural lapse cost the prosecution of the case.

Soon after the incident, the couple divorced, and the husband moved abroad in search of a job. Their first-born son remains with the woman, and the two live quietly with her parents.