Mother dead by tracks, wailing child tries to breastfeed

A wailing child clung to his dead mother’s breast as she lay dead near a railway track in Madhya Pradesh’s Damoh district.

The incident was captured on video that later went viral on the social media.

Some locals spotted the woman’s body around 6 am on Wednesday near Malaiya railway crossing. The toddler, aged around two, was seen shaking his mother and trying to wake her up.

“We received information from some persons that a woman, aged around 35, was lying dead close to the railway tracks while her infant son was clinging to her breast and shaking her,” GRP police station in-charge Anil Kumar Maravi said.

He said neither the identity of the woman nor the cause of her death could be ascertained.

All that was found from her was a receipt of a jewellery shop in Tikamgarh and Rs 573 in cash.

The child was handed over to a children’s home after a medical check-up.

“We have kept the child in Bal Bhawan (a child shelter home) after the medical check-up,” Damoh’s district child welfare committee chairman Sudhir Vidyarthi said.

A search for the child’s family is underway, he said.

“We will hand over the child to the family once they are found,” he added.