Kamal Ghorui
BAREILLY: A one-month-old girl died allegedly due to starvation and illness after her jobless parents left her and two other siblings alone at home and went out to beg on Friday. The family lives in Qila Cantonment area of Bareilly.The child’s father, Mohd Shadab, has been living with his family in a rented house for the past four months. According to local residents, Shadab was involved in the manjha (kite string) trade and lost his job during the Covid-19 pandemic, but could not secure a job after that. Though he got some temporary assistance from people, he was eventually forced into begging to sustain his family. Around 11 am on Friday, Shadab and his wife, Hina, left their three children, one aged one month and the other two kids, aged 1year-and-six months and four years, at home and went out to seek alms. When they returned around 6 pm, they found their one-month-old daughter unresponsive.“When the family started preparations to bury the body, police were alerted around 10 pm, said Qila SHO Subash Kumar. A police team arrived and took custody of the body and sent it for postmortem. The body was handed over to the family after postmortem examination. “The autopsy report cited illness and infection as the cause of death. However, locals claimed that the infant died due to starvation,” SHO Kumar told TOI on Sunday. TOI on Sunday reached Shadab’s house, but he had vacated the room after he failed to pay the rent. TOI tried to contact him, but he was unreachable. Neighbours said they were not aware of his whereabouts. A local resident said that this is not the first such tragedy in the family. The couple had earlier lost another child, aged six months, under similar distressing circumstances.
