India: Man feeds baby poison after failing to silence cries

Patna: A man in Bihar killed his 18-month-old son by feeding him poison after losing his temper over his frequent cries. The man is in hiding after committing the crime.

The incident took place at a village in Katihar, an eastern Bihar district more than 300km from Patna, on Saturday evening.

According to reports, the baby’s mother had gone out of the house leaving the infant with his father when he started crying. The man tried to calm him down but couldn’t. Eventually, he emptied a pesticide bottle into the baby’s mouth, leading to his death.

“When I rushed back home after hearing the baby’s cries, I saw my child lying lifeless in the lap of his father and an empty pesticide bottle still in his hand,” the baby’s mother Poonam Devi told the media on Sunday.

According to her, she instantly snatched the empty poison bottle from her husband and rushed to a nearby government health centre with the baby, but it was too late. The woman has registered a case against her husband who is absconding since the incident.

“The woman told us that her husband killed the baby by feeding poison. We are conducting raids to nab the accused who is absconding,” a local police official Sunil Kumar Roy said.

The accused, identified as Munna Mandal, drives an auto-rickshaw to support his family and is said to be an alcoholic. At the time of committing crime too, he was said to be in an inebriated state.

The Bihar government imposed a total ban on sale, manufacture and consumption of alcohol across the state five years ago, but liquor is still available. In the past five years, the authorities have seized more than 15 million litres of alcohol, according to an official report.

Apart from this, the police have arrested 346,000 people for violating the liquor law while 186 police officials have been sacked for helping liquor traders. This information was provided to the Bihar assembly in March this year by Sunil Kumar, the minister for prohibition and excise.