Written by Saman HusainGhaziabad | Updated: December 8, 2025 05:30 AM IST 3 min readThe incident came to light around 6.30 am on December 5, when Vinay Rawat, a resident of Nehru Nagar’s Rakesh Marg, spotted the body of the newborn on his roof and alerted police.A 22-year-old woman from West Bengal was arrested in Ghaziabad last week for allegedly killing her newborn daughter barely 45 minutes after delivering her at her sister’s residence, police said. They said the woman, Jharna, threw the infant from the terrace, intending for the body to land in a vacant plot behind the house, but the baby instead fell onto a neighbour’s roof.The incident came to light around 6.30 am on December 5, when Vinay Rawat, a resident of Nehru Nagar’s Rakesh Marg, spotted the body of the newborn on his roof and alerted police. “The baby appeared to have been born only a few hours earlier,” said ACP (Nandgram) Upasana Pandey.A neighbour told officers that one Shankar Sen — originally from West Bengal’s West Medinipur — was living on rent in a house, and that his sister-in-law Jharna, who was pregnant, had arrived around a month ago. When officers reached Shankar’s house, they found Jharna with her sister Savita.Jharna claimed that they were “too poor” to go to a hospital and had therefore delivered the baby at home. She said the newborn “was not breathing” and that she and her sister had attempted to dispose of what they believed to be a “stillborn child” in a nearby empty plot, but the body “accidentally” fell onto the neighbour’s terrace. The post-mortem report, however, contradicted her statement.According to officials, the doctor who conducted the autopsy said that the baby girl was alive when she suffered fatal injuries. “Her skull was broken. Her arm and leg bones were fractured. The injuries were caused within an hour of her birth,” the doctor told the police.Police said Jharna eventually broke down during questioning and told officers that she had thrown the baby while she was alive.Police said Jharna, who married Badal from Bihar’s Darbhanga a year-and-a-half ago, had been desperate for a son. She disclosed that she had undergone a sex determination test five months ago at a private nursing home in Darbhanga. The test indicated she was carrying a girl.Story continues below this adPolice said that she had earlier visited a hospital alone to abort the baby. When doctors refused, citing medical complications, she consulted some women in her family and took medicines as suggested by them. However, her health deteriorated.The woman arrived at her sister Savita’s house in Ghaziabad’s Nehru Nagar on November 14. In the early hours of December 5, Jharna went into labour. Despite her sister urging her to go to hospital, she refused and delivered the baby at home around 6 am.“She said that she had panicked and was scared of informing her husband that she had delivered a girl,” ACP Pandey said.The newborn landed 20 feet away, landing on Rawat’s roof. The body was found wrapped in polythene behind the water tank on the terrace.Story continues below this adJharna has been booked under Section 91 of the BNS for causing death immediately after birth. Police said statements of her sister and brother-in-law have been recorded, and a DNA test will be conducted. “We are trying to get in touch with the woman’s husband in Darbhanga,” the ACP said.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:ghaziabad