Three-month-old baby Afreen died today in Bangalore hospital suffering from the allegedly beaten and abused by her own father for being born a girl. The baby, named Afreen, was hospitalized in Bangalore on Sunday with burn marks on her head and a dislocated neck, injuries that police said were caused by her father, Umar Farooq.
Doctors at the Van Vilas Hospital in Bangalore said Afreen died around 11:30 am. “Afreen had convulsions at 10am and later suffered a cardiac arrest,” said Dr Some Gowda of the hospital. “We are sad to announce that Baby Afreen suffered a cardiac arrest at 10:40am , we tried resuscitating her for half an hour, but unfortunately we couldn’t save her,” Professor R Premalatha of Bangalore’s Vani Vilas government hospital told reporters. Professor added that the chance of saving the life of the baby was almost non-existent because she had entered into a comatose-like condition.
“My husband was enraged with me for delivering a girl,” Afreen’s mother Reshma Banu told reporters. “He hated her. He wanted me to get rid of the child or abandon her as he wanted a son.”
Reacting to the death, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on Wednesday called it a murder and asked for murder charges to be pressed against her father.