Jagatsinghpur: The autopsy report of a 20-year-old woman, who died after drowning in a pond at a village in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district, showed that she was nine months pregnant.
The body of the woman had been found in a pond at Tentulibellari village in Balikuda area of the district on Friday. Her family members had claimed that she accidentally slipped and drowned in the pond. They had also informed the local police about the incident.
A police team visited the village and sent the woman’s body to the district headquarters hospital (DHH) for postmortem. During autopsy, it was found that the unmarried woman was carrying a baby for around nine months, sources said.
The revelation came as a surprise as the woman was unmarked and locals felt that the drowning incident took place under mysterious circumstances.
Superintendent of Jagatsinghpur DHH Nimain Charan Nayak was quoted by TNIE as saying that they have preserved the dead foetus as it is a legal issue. “Blood samples have been collected from the baby’s umbilical cord and those will be sent to the forensic laboratory at Bhubaneswar for DNA test as part of police investigation. We have also handed over the girl’s postmortem report to local police,” he was quoted as saying.
Police said a case of unnatural death has been registered following a complaint lodged by the family of the deceased. Investigation is underway to ascertain the reason behind the death of the woman taking into account the autopsy report.