An Indian father of five daughters who was desperate for a son that he allegedly split open his pregnant wife’s belly to determine the gender of their baby, has lost the child who was actually a boy.
The man, identified as Pannalal,43, attacked his wife Anita Devi, 35, with a sharp-edged weapon on Saturday night , September 19, at their home in Budaun in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, The Times of India reported.
The woman was rushed to a Bareilly hospital in a serious condition, but doctors were able to save her life.
However, the woman who was six to seven months pregnant before the attack later gave birth to a stillborn son, the BBC reports.
According to the new report, the man has claimed he did not hurt his wife intentionally but admitted that he threw the sickle at her.
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Civil Lines Police Station SHO, Sudhakar Pandey, who confirmed Pannalal’s arrest told TOI : “A priest had predicted that their sixth child would also be a girl. Pannalal then attacked Anita with a sickle on her abdomen to kill the fetus after she refused to have an abortion.”
My brother-in-law often used to beat my sister for giving birth to five daughters. Our parents had intervened on several occasions. But no one imagined that he would take such a cruel step,” Anita Devi’s brother, Ravi Kumar Singh, told The Times of India.