Man Buries His Baby Alive After Being Born Deformed

Pakistani police arrested a man accused of burying his newborn daughter alive, because she was physically deformed,
officials said.

The shocking incident illustrates the extreme prejudice
in Pakistan against children, especially girls, who are
born with some type of physical deformity. They are
often seen as shameful to the family, especially in the
rural and impoverished countryside, where they are
seen as a burden for the family.

Mohammed Anwar, a police officer in the city of
Khanewal, in the eastern province of Punjab, said the
boy was born at a hospital in the nearby city of Kacha
Khoh.

After seeing his newborn daughter, the father told the
family that the baby was stillborn and organized a
funeral, the chief of police of the city, Shamshad Khalid,
said.

The child began to cry at the funeral service and the
cleric told the father to take the child to a hospital, said
Khalid. Instead, the man, identified by police as Chand
Khan, buried her. Residents alerted authorities after
seeing her father carrying the baby to the cemetery
after which the police raided the man's house and
arrested him on charges of murder.

Khan, who has four other children, did not tell his wife
about his plans to get rid of the child, the police chief
said, adding that the woman was still in the hospital
when the baby was buried.

Mohammad Farooq, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in
Kacha Khoh, said he had seen the child after birth. He
said she was healthy and alive, but had a large head and
the characteristics of being "abnormal".

"I am a doctor in the same hospital where the child was
born. This man came to me yesterday with a request
that had to do something to get rid of his daughter, but
I rebuffed him and told him to leave," said Farooq.
"Nobody has the right to kill anyone because of their
physical deformity," he said.

He approached another doctor and requested that the
doctor poison his daughter to death. This other doctor
also refused his request.