Sunday, January 27, 2013

South Asian father chews off his 5-month-old daughter's nose and upper lip because she wouldn't stop crying

Little Radha can't be fed normally and may not be able to speak properly unless she undergoes extensive plastic surgery - because her nose and upper lip have been bitten off. The man who did this to the five-month-old was her own father, Bhadar Singh, a farm laborer in Siyana village of the Bikaner district in Rajasthan. The father chewed off his daughter's lips and nose because he was angered by her crying. He has been arrested and booked under various sections of the Indian penal code (IPC) for causing grievous hurt with dangerous means, which provide for a sentence ranging from 10 years in jail up to life imprisonment. According to the police, Bhadar, 36, came home drunk when his wife Santosh and his sister Saroj were applying mehendi (henna) to their hands. He asked his wife to do some work. Showing him her hands, she said that she wasn't able to, at which Bhadar started abusing and beating her. When Saroj protested, he warned her against intervening. But seeing her mother being assaulted, their elder daughter, three-year old Bhanwar Kanwar, started crying. This angered the drunken Bhadar, who duly turned his fury on Bhanwar. He is accused of biting the toddler on her back, hands and other body parts before throwing her on the ground. Baby Radha was asleep in another room, but was woken up by her sister's screams and began crying. Her father then started biting his younger child. Horrified, his wife and sister ran out to raise the alarm. The neighbors then rushed in and grabbed Bhadar, who was handed over to the police. Radha and Bhanwar were taken to the government-run Prince Bijay Singh Memorial (PBSM) Hospital in Bikaner. Dr Girish Prabhakar, head of the pediatric surgery department of the hospital, said that although Radha was out of danger, she would have to undergo extensive, drastic plastic surgery.

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