22-yr-old Bengal woman held for killing her newborn girl: ‘Desperate for a son, she was afraid to inform her husband of giving birth to a girl’
The woman initially claimed of giving birth to stillborn, but postmortem report concluded that the infant died of fatal injuries when thrown from terrace
A 22-year-old woman from West Bengal has been arrested in Ghaziabad for allegedly killing her newborn daughter barely 45 minutes after giving birth at her sister’s home.
Police said Jharna allegedly wanted to throw the newborn from the terrace to a vacant plot behind the house, but the baby instead fell onto a neighbour’s roof.
The incident came to light on the morning of December 5, when Vinay Rawat, a resident of Nehru Nagar, spotted the body of a newborn on his roof and alerted police.
“The baby appeared to have been born only a few hours earlier. We immediately cordoned off the area and conducted videography and forensic examination of the spot,” said ACP (Nandgram) Upasana Pandey.
As police began door-to-door inquiries, a neighbour told them that a man named Shankar Sen — originally from Paschim Medinipur in West Bengal – was living as a tenant in the adjoining house, and his sister-in-law, Jharna, had arrived nearly a month ago and was visibly pregnant.
When police reached the house, they found Jharna with her sister, Savita.
Initially, Jharna told the police that she and her sister were “too poor” to go to a hospital and had therefore opted for a home delivery. She claimed that the newborn “wasn’t breathing” at birth and that she and her sister tried to dispose of what they believed to be a stillborn child.
But the postmortem report contradicted her statement.
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According to officials, the doctor who conducted the autopsy said the newborn was alive when she suffered fatal injuries on her fall.
“Her skull was broken. Her arm and leg bones were fractured. The injuries were caused within an hour of her birth,” the postmortem report concluded.
Confronted with the findings, police said, Jharna broke down during questioning and confessed to throwing her girl child alive from the terrace.
During the two-hour questioning, a disturbing chain of events surfaced. Police said Jharna, who married Badal from Darbhanga, Bihar, a year and a half ago, had been desperate for a son.
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“She disclosed that she had undergone a fetal sex determination test five months ago at a private nursing home in Darbhanga, which is an illegal procedure. The test indicated she was carrying a girl,” a police officer said.
Police said that she had earlier visited a hospital alone for an abortion. When doctors refused, citing medical complications, she consulted the women in her extended family and took medications suggested by them.
“As her health deteriorated further, she told her husband that she wished to stay with her sister in Ghaziabad for a few days. He agreed. She arrived at her sister’s home in Ghaziabad’s Nehru Nagar on November 14. In the early hours of December 5, Jharna went into labour. Despite her sister urging her to go to the hospital, she refused and delivered the baby at home around 6 am. She said that after she realised the baby was a girl, she panicked and was afraid of informing her husband. She walked to the terrace, and seeing the vacant plot behind the house, she decided to throw the baby there,” ACP Pandey said.
Jharna has been booked under Section 91 of the BNS for causing the death of a newborn. “A DNA test will be conducted to establish the maternity conclusively. Efforts are underway to contact the woman’s husband in Darbhanga,” the ACP said.
Saman Husain is a Correspondent at The Indian Express. Based in New Delhi, she is an emerging voice in political journalism, reporting on civic governance, elections, migration, and the social consequences of policy, with a focus on ground-reporting across Delhi-NCR and western Uttar Pradesh.
Professional Profile
Education:
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science (Honours) from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, and is an alumna of the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Chennai.
Core Beats:
Her reporting focuses on the national capital’s governance and politics. She specializes in Delhi’s civic administration and the city units of the BJP, AAP and Congress. In western Uttar Pradesh, she mostly reports on crime.
Specialization:
She has a keen interest in electoral processes and politics — her recent contributions include work on electoral roll revisions.
Recent Notable Articles (since July 2025)
Her recent work reflects a strong show-not-tell approach to storytelling, combining narrative reporting with political and historical context:
1. Politics:
“On the banks of the Yamuna, a political tussle for Purvanchali support” (October 6): A report on how migration histories shaped electoral strategies in Delhi before the Bihar elections.
“Explained: How Delhi’s natural drainage vanished gradually over the centuries” (September 29): An explanatory piece tracing the historical reasons that eventually led to the erosion of Delhi’s rivers and its impact on perrenial flooding.
2. Longforms
“Four weddings, three funerals: How a Uttar Pradesh man swindled insurance companies” (October 7): A long-read reconstructing a chilling fraud by a man who killed three of his family members, including both his parents for insurance proceeds. His fourth wife discovered his fraud…
“How Ghaziabad conman operated fake embassy of a country that doesn’t exist — for 9 years” (July 27) : A story on bizarre fraud operation and the institutional blind spots that enabled it.
3. Crime and Justice:
“He was 8 when his father was killed. Fifteen years later, in UP’s Shamli, he took revenge” (October 18): A deeply reported crime story tracing cycles of violence, memory and justice in rural Uttar Pradesh.
“Who killed 19 girls in Nithari? With the SC rejecting appeals, there are no answers and no closure” (July 31): A report capturing the long legal and emotional aftermath of one of India’s most chilling unsolved criminal cases.
4. Policy Impact
“At Manthan, over US tariffs, Delhi-NCR’s apparel industry brainstorms solutions” (September 8) and “Trump’s 50% tariff begins to bite: Agra’s leather belt feels the impact” (August 13) : Reports documenting how global trade decisions ripple through local industries, workers and exporters.
Signature Style
Saman is recognized for her grassroots storytelling. Her articles often focus on the "people behind the policy". She is particularly skilled at taking mundane administrative processes and turning them into compelling human narratives.
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