‘Doctors cite ‘severe malnutrition’ as reason for deaths of 3 minor girls’

New Delhi, November 15

Doctors have cited “severe malnutrition” as the reason behind the deaths of three minor girls in Mandawali in July this year, police sources said today.

The family, hailing from West Bengal, was reportedly facing financial woes, and the doctors suspected that the three girls did not have food for days.

The girls, aged eight, four and two years, were brought to a hospital by their mother and their father’s friend where they were declared brought dead. The father of the girls has been missing since the incident, and police are on the lookout for him.

The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Rohini, had submitted the viscera report to the Delhi Police which stated that “no external toxins” were found in the girls’ bodies, thus ruling out any foul play in their deaths, the sources said.

The FSL had also examined some medicines used to treat skin infection and some food items that were collected from the house where the girls were staying, but there were no toxins found in the collected items, they added.

GTB Hospital, in its final opinion, cited “severe malnutrition” as the cause of death.

A Delhi government magisterial probe report in July had sought “deeper investigation” into the conduct of the father of the girls, and had said he had given them some “unknown medicine”.

The report had also said that the “nutritional condition of the children was not quite well”. — PTI