Newborn wrapped in cover found dead on Kochi street, police suspects mother victim of sexual assault

Kochi: The newborn child, found dead on a street in Kochi after being allegedly thrown there by its mother post delivery, was strangulated according to the post-mortem report, police said on Saturday.

City police Commissioner S Syamsundar said the arrest of the 23-year-old woman, presently hospitalised, was recorded on Friday and police were verifying her statements regarding a friend from Thrissur.

Police said the child’s skull had also suffered damage, according to the post-mortem report.

The woman, suspected to be a victim of sexual assault, concealed her pregnancy, delivered a baby in the early hours of Friday in her apartment bathroom, and allegedly threw the newborn on the street in front of her flat complex situated in a posh residential area in this port city of Kerala.

The woman, who is undergoing treatment, had apparently mentioned about her friend from Thrissur prompting the police to suspect a coercion or a rape angle.

The City police Commissioner today said they need to verify her claims.

Hours after the newborn was found dead in ‘an’ abandoned parcel cover on Friday, police took the woman into custody after tracing the address mentioned on the packet in which the child was wrapped and thrown.

Conservancy workers of Kochi Corporation found the child’s body along a street in posh Panampilly Nagar here and had alerted the police.

Police had said the woman had confessed that she gave birth to the child in her bathroom at around 5-5.30 AM on Friday and later threw the baby as she panicked when her mother knocked on her bedroom door.

It is said that the parents of the woman, with whom she was staying, were unaware of her pregnancy. They were also not aware of the delivery, as it happened inside the bathroom, which was locked by the woman, police had said.