JOIN USA 40-day-old infant girl was found dumped inside a washing machine on Monday after the baby was strangled to death by her Mother in the Vepery area of Chennai, police said.
The mother, 19-year-old Ramya, took this extreme step of sniffing out the infant’s life, “on fears that they both may be soon deserted by her husband,” Vepery Police said on the basis of her confession made to the investigating authorities.
Ramya was staying in the servants’ quarters with her father Vengal Rao, working as a security guard in an apartment complex at Vepery. The family is from Andhra Pradesh where she was living with her husband. Recently, the expectant mother had come down to her father’s place for delivery, Police said.
However, Ramya found her husband “speaking for long hours with another woman” over the cell-phone, triggering suspicions that he might ditch her and also jeopardise the girl child’s future, Police said.
Late on Sunday, when both her father and husband were not at home, Ramya allegedly strangled her baby with a piece of cloth and later dumped the infant into an unused washing machine kept near the servants’ quarters, Police said.
To the shock of the residents of the apartment complex, the dead baby was found inside the washing machine in the early hours of Monday after Ramya, opening the compound gate for one of the early morning walkers there, began crying aloud, screaming “my child is missing,” after which a search was mounted, Police said.
Ramya, who later confessed to the crime as “triggered” by her husband’s questionable behaviour, has since been arrested and sent for judicial remand, Police said. The baby’s post-mortem will be taken up on Tuesday.