New Delhi:
A two-year-old battered and bruised baby girl is battling for her life at the capital's All India Institute of Medical Sciences. With fractured arms, serious injuries in head and bite marks all over her body, she is in critical condition and hence has been kept on ventilator support in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU). A 15-year-old girl who claimed to be her mother had brought her here on January 18.
The teenage 'mother' claims the baby girl, she calls her Falak, had fallen off her bed. But doctors say her severe wounds - head injuries, bilateral fractures in both arms, bite marks all over her body and some kind of branding on her face - could not be a result of what the teenager claims.
"The girl child was brought to the hospital on the 18th of this month by a teenage girl who claimed to be the mother of this child. On examination, we found the child had severe brain injuries and bilateral upper arm fractures. Also, marks of human bites can be seen on the face of the child. So looking at the injuries, we suspect that this a "battered baby syndrome" where the child has been abused," Dr MC Mishra, the head of AIIMS trauma centre, told NDTV.
The baby has suffered two cardiac arrests since her operation. The doctors say she is fighting back, but with such severe and brutal injuries, even if she survives, it will be with considerable brain damage.
While trying to determine the exact cause of the baby's injuries, police questioned the teenager. During interrogation, she admitted to beating the baby but denies the bites. She also revealed that she had got the baby a month back from a boy she had been living with at a guest house in Delhi. She also confessed to eloping with him. The teenager has been handed over to the child welfare committee. The boy is so far untraceable.
Police say in this case, the teenager could also be a victim since she had been missing from her house for the past one year and a kidnapping case had been registered by her parents.