Delhi man arrested for killing newborn twin daughters as family wanted boy
Police in New Delhi have arrested Neeraj Solanki, 32, for allegedly killing his newborn twin daughters. Solanki was apprehended in the neighboring state of Haryana after being on the run for over a month. He has been charged with murder.
Authorities claim Solanki killed the three-day-old twins and buried them because his family was "unhappy" about his wife giving birth to girls, as they preferred a boy, according to NDTV.
The investigation began after a tip-off on June 3rd, when the suspect’s brother-in-law alerted police to the killings. He claimed Solanki had buried the infants at a crematorium. The bodies were exhumed on June 5th, sent for autopsy, and later handed over to their maternal uncle.
Solanki was charged following an official complaint filed by his wife. She stated that the babies were taken from her shortly after birth, and she was falsely informed they had died from an illness. In her complaint, she also alleged harassment by her in-laws for dowry since their marriage in 2022 and claimed she was forced to undergo a prenatal sex determination test, which has been banned in India since 1994 to prevent sex-selective abortions.
Indian laws also prohibit doctors and health workers from revealing the sex of an unborn child to the parents.
Solanki managed to evade arrest for a month by frequently changing his mobile SIM card and hiding in various locations. After his capture, he confessed to the crime, police reported.
A 2022 report by the Pew Research Center revealed that at least nine million girls went "missing" in India due to female infanticide from 2000 to 2019. Despite this, the sex ratio at birth in India has improved from 918 girls per 1,000 boys in 2014-15 to 933 in 2022-23, according to the National Family Health Survey.
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