The barcode revealed that the consignment was delivered to the woman's parents.
Police said the accused, a student, was a rape survivor. (Representational image/iStock)
It was a mere barcode that decoded a gruesome and heart-wrenching murder at Vidya Nagar in Kochi’s upmarket Panampilly Nagar locality.
The probe into the murder of an infant — destined to live only for three hours with muffled cries — also brought to focus the police’s investigative prowess. The case was cracked within a few hours of finding the little body wrapped in a plastic courier packet on Friday, 3 May.
The abandoned body of the infant was discovered wrapped in a seemingly ordinary cover. However, a keen eye spotted a partially damaged barcode printed on the blood-soaked cover.
Recognising its potential significance, forensic experts deciphered the code, leading them straight to the door of the culprit — the 23-year-old mother of the newborn.
Incidentally, the police team who arrived at the scene had their doubts about the woman due to her ‘indifferent’ attitude.
As the CCTV visuals showed that the baby was flung alive onto the road from the fifth-floor balcony, the police focused their attention on the residents of nearby flats.
“While questioning the residents, we arrived at an apartment. Upon summoning the residents there — a woman and her parents — we conveyed to them what had happened,” a police officer told South First.
“What struck us was the woman’s deadpan expression. She also looked exhausted. We smelled a rat. We checked her room which had a strong smell of a disinfectant,” he explained.
The police also noticed bloodstain-like marks there.
“No clues were leading to her. We waited for it. Then came this barcode breakthrough. It took us once again to her door. We confirmed that she was the person we were looking for,” the officer said.
The cover in which the baby was wrapped was that of an e-commerce company. The barcode revealed that the consignment was delivered to the woman’s parents.
Incidentally, her parents were reportedly unaware of her pregnancy and the childbirth.
The police requested the media not to identify the young woman, a student, since she was a rape survivor.
It is learnt that after being taken into custody, the woman confessed to the act.
As per her statement, overwhelmed by her circumstances, she allegedly smothered the newborn and used clothes to silence its cries.
It is said that she gave birth to the child in her bathroom at around 5–5.30 am on Friday and later threw the baby as she panicked when her mother knocked on the bedroom door.
She hurriedly wrapped the newborn in a cover and flung it onto the road from the balcony of her fifth-floor apartment.
As per the preliminary postmortem findings, the child was strangulated, and the child’s skull had suffered fractures.
The woman, who is undergoing treatment, apparently mentioned a friend in Thrissur, who she had met on social media. It made the police suspect coercion or a rape angle. However, the police said that they needed to verify her claims.
Meanwhile, the mother accused of killing her newborn has been sent to 14 days in judicial custody.
The Ernakulam Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate went to the Ernakulam General Hospital where she is undergoing treatment and remanded her in judicial custody till 18 May.
The police would move the custody application after receiving her medical report.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
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