Female Infanticide-Murder of Humanity

Infanticide refers to the deliberate killing of a child below one year of age. Female infanticide is the intentional killing of baby girls due to preference for a male baby. The killing may be consequent to active infanticide in which the means like fatal injury and poisoning are the direct and immediate cause of death and passive infanticide which involves the indirect cause like sustained nutritional deprivation. This crime is generally committed at the time of or within a few days of delivery. In many cases, the infant has obvious injury over her vital parts that confirms the homicide. Here, we are presenting a case of female infanticide in which the infant was murdered by inflicting fatal head injury with other injuries over the body. We have also reviewed the present status of female infanticide in our country.