Lucknow, Aug 11 A man has been arrested in Uttar Pradesh two years after he dumped his newborn daughter in the thickets in Mohanlalganj area.
Identified as Raj Kumar Yadav, the accused had abandoned his four-day-old baby girl in bushes allegedly because he had no money to feed her.
Station House Officer (SHO) Mohanlalganj, Dinanath Mishra, said, "The baby was found covered in a blanket from a site where some morning walkers had spotted stray dogs loitering around."
"A police team with the help of Childline members had rescued the baby who was rushed to a government hospital from where she was shifted to a private hospital in Dalibagh. She underwent treatment for 27 days. Later she died due to lung infection," he said.
The police had traced the parents who were then living in Chandigarh. However, since it took around 75 days for the police team to reach Chandigarh, the couple went 'missing' from their residence and their phones were found to be switched off.
In June this year, on the instructions of Police Commissioner D.K. Thakur, the probe was resumed.
The investigators inquired in the private hospital where the infant was delivered.
"The ward boy Arvind, who had handed over the infant from the maternity ward to Raj Kumar, was arrested," said Mishra.
Later, the police traced the parents to Unnao, who had again returned from Punjab to Uttar Pradesh, but this time to a different address.
Yadav, who worked at brick kiln, said he dumped the infant because he had no money to feed her.
"Doctors had told us that she was not keeping well since birth, and her treatment costs would be in several lakhs of rupees," he confessed.
However, he apparently told his wife that the infant had died soon after the birth, said the police.
The SHO said that Yadav has been booked for abandoning a child with intent to cause death.
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