Kochi, May 3 (IANS): The Kochi Police on Friday confirmed that a 23-year-old woman -- claiming to be a mother -- has admitted to flinging a newborn child from her apartment, causing the infant's death.
Kerala woke up to a piece of shocking news on Friday with TV channels airing a CCTV clip showing the infant, wrapped in a plastic packet, falling from an apartment in Kochi.
A passerby first spotted the body lying on the road.
After a preliminary probe, the police rounded up a family living in the apartment, including a 23-year-old woman and her parents.
During questioning, the woman admitted to flinging her 'baby' to the road, while her parents said they had no clue as to what happened to their daughter.
The Kochi City Police Commissioner told the media that the woman admitted to throwing the baby she claimed she delivered just a few hours before the incident.
“The parents are claiming that they were not aware of what had happened to their daughter. The delivery reportedly took place inside a bathroom in the flat. We will know if it was a stillborn child, or whether the newborn died due to the impact of the fall after receiving the post-mortem report," the officer said.
“We are also probing if the woman was a victim of rape,” he added.
The police are reportedly searching for a youth from Trissur in connection with the case.
The security official in the apartment block had gone for breakfast at around 8 a.m. soon after which the incident took place.
A local health worker said that the best of her knowledge, there were no pregnant women in the apartment block.
A special team led by ACP Rajkumar has been constituted to carry out a detailed probe into the matter.
The security official told the media that the family hails from Kochi and had moved into the apartment block sometime back.
The local councillor told the media that the first evidence surfaced after the packet was opened and a cover from Amazon was found in it.
“The address on it was covered with blood stains and was not readable. The bar code on the cover was scanned which led to the flat where the woman lived,” the councillor said.