Mother ‘kills’ 3-yr-old in West Bengal’s Malda, held

The mother has been detained and is being questioned in connection with the killing. According to her husband, she is not in a sound mental state and has been under medication.

According to sources, her husband, Shaheb Ali, left for work as usual on Wednesday morning. With nobody else around to watch their daughter Arefa, Manowara slit her daughter’s throat in the bedroom around noon.

A resident of Mohanpur, Ali works as a daily wage labourer in another state. However, since the lockdown came into effect, he has been working in Malda.

Sources said his first wife died a few years ago. He has two children from his first marriage to Begam Bibi — a son and a daughter. After her death, he married Manowara, a resident of Kumedpur. She gave birth to a daughter three years ago and they named her Arefa Khatun.

Her husband claimed there were no domestic issues. “She had once jumped into a pond with her daughter. Luckily, some villagers saw it and pulled them out of the water. She is not mentally sound and has been on medication for a while,” he told local media.
Police, however, said that they have initiated an investigation into the incident.