A 33-year-old man hailing from Kethaiyarumbu in Dindigul district killed his 25-day-old daughter on Monday, by throwing her against a wall at his residence. This, after his wife allegedly refused to serve him lunch at 4 pm when he came home inebriated.
According to the police, Manikanda Prabhu, who hails from the Theppampatti village, is a daily wage worker who relies on work at construction sites for his income. On Monday, he had accompanied a contestant from his village who was going to file nomination papers for the upcoming Panchayat elections and then went gone on to get inebriated with his friend. He then came back to his residence and demanded that his wife Nagalakshmi serve him lunch. But she told him that it was 4 pm and that she could not whip up anything for him to eat right away.
“He got very angry and the two engaged in a verbal spat. Even as they were fighting, the baby began to cry and so Nagalakshmi went to soothe her,” says an investigating official. “On seeing his wife not paying attention to him, Manikanda Prabhu got further enraged. He said that she was not giving him food because she was too busy taking care of the baby. Then he slammed the baby and the cradle on to the wall in anger. The child died because of the wounds she suffered,” the official adds.
Nagalakshmi, while devastated initially, allegedly agreed to help her husband cover up the murder. They buried the child in a location near the house and absconded with their older daughter.
The crime came to light on Wednesday, when a nurse from the Public Health Care Unit went to check why the family had not come for the child’s vaccination shots.
In her complaint to the police the nurse says, “When I went to their home, they were not present there. And so I asked the people around what happened. The villagers and their relatives said that they got into a spat and the child was killed in the process. I informed my superior and gave a police complaint.”
The Ottanchatiram police then tracked down the couple and booked Manikanda Prabhu for murder while his wife was booked for hiding evidence.
“It was terrible exhuming the child… all the officials, even though we are hardened, were very affected by it,” says the investigating official.