Reuters AlertNet Lite - Indian police find baby bones in hospital yard

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Indian police find baby bones in hospital yard

18 Feb 2007 06:56:52 GMT
Source: Reuters

BHOPAL, India, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh recovered 390 pieces of bones of newly born babies or foetues from the backyard of a Christian missionary hospital, officials and media reports said on Sunday.

"The question of female foeticide and infanticide is part of our investigation, as is illegal abortions," Superintendent of Police Satish Saxena said, speaking from Ratlam town where the grisly find was made on Saturday.

Ratlam is 230 km (140 miles) west of Bhopal, the state capital.

Police, acting on a tip, dug up the backyard of the hospital and found the pieces of bones, some stuffed in plastic bags.

Police in Ratlam have sent the remains to a government laboratory in Bhopal for forensic tests.

The hospital administrators were not available for comment.

Despite laws banning sex determination tests, the killing of female foetuses is still common in India where the preference for sons runs deep. Infanticide is also practised in some areas.

Last December, the government said 10 million girls have been killed by their parents in the past 20 years either before they were born or immediately after.

Boys are seen as future breadearners, while girls are often thought to be liabilities as their parents have to pay costly dowries during their marriages.

The discovery in Ratlam comes weeks after federal police started investigating the gruesome killings of about 20 children and women in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.

In that case, which sparked national outrage, skulls and body parts of the children and women were dug up from the backyard of a rich businessman's house in Noida near New Delhi as well as from a drain outside the home.

The businessman and his domestic servant have been arrested and local police slammed for not following up on reports of missing children in the area.

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Last updated:Sun Feb 18 06:56:51 2007