A 26-year-old woman allegedly threw her six-year-old disabled son into a crocodile-infested river at Dandeli taluk in the Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka following a quarrel with her husband.
The couple often fought with each other over the condition of their elder son, who had been mute since birth. They have another two-year-old son, police said, PTI reported.
The woman, identified as Savitri and her husband Ravi Kumar (27) used to frequently quarrel over the elder son’s disability and her husband used to question her as to why she gave birth to a mute child.
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On certain occasions, he used to allegedly tell her to “throw the child away”, police said.
According to the police, following a fight over the same matter on Saturday evening, frustrated Savitri allegedly threw her elder son into a waste canal directly linked to the Kali river, which is infested with crocodiles, PTI reported.
The neighbours alerted the police. They reached the spot and with the help of locals and divers, conducted a search operation to rescue the child. However, since it was dark, the police could not find the child.
On Sunday morning, the police managed to retrieve the body of the child with severe injuries, bite marks across the body and a missing hand indicating that the child was the victim of a crocodile attack.
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The body was sent for post-mortem to ascertain the exact cause of death, police said, adding a further investigation into the matter is underway.
“We have registered a case at Dandeli Rural Police station under section 109 (Abetment of any offence, if the act abetted is committed in consequence, and where no express provision is made for its punishment) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and arrested both husband and wife in connection with the incident,” the officer said.
(With inputs from PTI)