A ten-year-old Indian girl who was forced to give birth after judges stopped her having an abortion was made pregnant by one of her uncles, police say.
DNA tests on the baby matched a 38-year-old uncle, the second uncle to be held and charged with raping the girl.
The young girl, from Chandigarh, Punjab, was denied an abortion by a court in July, because her family only discovered that she was pregnant when she was in her third trimester.
It was originally believed the girl had fallen pregnant by an uncle in his 40s, but his DNA did not match the baby, and the 38-year-old relative was later arrested and police are now filing charges against him.
A DNA test carried out on the young girl’s baby matched a 38-year-old uncle who was arrested in September. He was the second uncle to be held on abuse charges. Pictured above is a protest against rape and sexual violence in India
The 38-year-old uncle was arrested last month after the girl told police and counsellors his name.
Neelambari Vijay, a senior police official in Chandigarh city, told the BBC: ‘It’s true the Baby’s DNA sample has matched that of the [second] uncle.’
A local court will hold a hearing in the case later on Tuesday.
The first uncle, the one in his 40s, will remain in custody as he is still accused of abusing the girl.
The girl initially told police and that she had been raped several times by the first uncle over the last seven months.
The girl’s father said that the uncle has not denied the abuse charges against him.
Police reopened the case after a DNA test showed the first uncle was not the father and launched a further investigation to see whether the girl may have been raped by others.
The girl’s baby was delivered by C-section at a hospital in Chandigarh in August and the infant is now in the care of authorities ahead of an adoption.
The young girl, from Chandigarh, Punjab, was denied an abortion by a court in July, because her family only discovered that she was pregnant when she was in her third trimester
The chairman of the team that treated the girl, Dr Dasari Harish, said: ‘As far as the girl is concerned, she is stable and will be kept in a separate room.’
He added that the ‘high risk pregnancy’ ultimately concluded in an ‘uneventful’ birth.
‘We hope the baby also recovers,’ he said.
The girl was not aware that she was going to hospital to deliver a baby but was instead told by her parents that she needed an operation to remove a stone from her stomach.
Chief Justice J S Khehar-headed bench denied the plea of the girl by citing a ‘grave threat’ to her life
Her father has asked that the child be made available for adoption.
Indian law does not allow women to undergo the procedure beyond 20 weeks unless the foetus is proven to be genetically unviable or if it poses a risk to the mother’s life.
The girl’s parents discovered their child was pregnant after she complained to them about stomach pains.
She later told her mother that her maternal uncle had raped her six times over a period of several months when he visited the family in their home.
On July 18, the family sought legal permission to have the pregnancy terminated and the uncle was arrested, but their initial appeal to Chandigarh court was refused.
They then went to the supreme court in Delhi but – when the girl was 32-weeks pregnant – that appeal was also refused.
The Chief Justice J S Khehar-headed bench denied the plea of the girl by citing a ‘grave threat’ to her life.
‘The medical board is satisfied that it will neither be in the interest of the child or the live foetus which is approximately 32 weeks old to order abortion,’ said the bench.
The team of doctors that delivered the birth today consisted of three gynaecologists, an anaesthetist, a neonatologist and a paediatrician.