Hunger kills three daughters of unemployed rickshaw-puller in east Delhi

Three minor girls, daughters of a rickshaw-puller, died due to starvation on Tuesday in the Mandawali area of east Delhi. Local police have confirmed that the sisters died due to starvation, but the police are still awaiting the second post-mortem report from the doctors at Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Hospital.

According to the police, the three dead aged two, four and eight years, were found unconscious in their one-room house by their neighbours and were later declared brought dead at the LBS Hospital.

"When their neighbours entered the house, they found that the girls were numb while their mother, who was also present in the house, did not know anything," said Deputy Commissioner of Police, East, Pankaj Kumar Singh.

Cops investigating the case said they found medicines in the house, which the girls had been taking for the past few days. "The landlord, due to non-payment of rent, had thrown the family out. He has been asked to join the investigation, too," a police official said.
"The family had moved to Mandawali a few days ago," said Singh, adding that they were living with a relative. The father, a rickshaw-puller, has been missing since Tuesday morning, he said.

The minors' mother, the police said, is mentally challenged, and she was unable to look after her children.

While the police claimed that the case was still being investigated and that the cause of death was not yet known, Medical Superintendent at LBS Hospital, Amita Saxena said the kids died of hunger, going by the first autopsy conducted at the hospital.

There was no trace of food in the stomachs of the dead girls. They might not have eaten anything since Saturday, suggests the initial autopsy findings. Their urinary bladders and rectums were empty while the gall bladders got filled with bile.

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