Coimbatore: College student gives birth in toilet, kills infant

A final year undergraduate student, who had been concealing her pregnancy, gave birth to a baby in a toilet of a petrol bunk and allegedly strangulated the newborn in the early hours today, police said.

The woman pursuing Bsc at a private college in Athur in Salem district was returning along with her collegemates in a bus from Kerala, where they had gone for a tour, when she developed acute stomach pain. When the bus stopped at a petrol bunk near Navakkarai on the city outskirts, she ran to the toilet and delivered the baby and reportedly strangulated it to death, police said. When she did not return for long, her friends went to the toilet, only to see her lying in a pool of blood, with the baby nearby.

Both were rushed to the Government Hospital, where the baby was declared dead. The student is under-treatment.

Her parents, when contacted, told police that their daughter had informed them that she was suffering from stomach pain due to a tumour for the last few months and the doctors had suggested its removal. Police suspect she might have killed the baby as it was born out of wedlock.