Partially eaten body of baby girl found; autopsy confirms animal attack

In a tragic incident, police have discovered the partially eaten body of a nine-month-old female child near a pond.

The shocking discovery was made Sunday afternoon in Lakhimpur district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, reported The Times Of India. The child had gone missing while sleeping with her mother in the courtyard of her house.

The autopsy confirmed the child was killed by an animal. Officers suspect the girl was picked up by some wild animal and dragged towards the pond.

The parents of the child approached the police immediately after she went missing. Since their home is located near a forest area, the officers deployed two special teams to comb through the region, including the woods. A few hours later, they found the child's remains near the waterbody.

"The child's house is on the fringe of the village and is surrounded by agricultural fields. A number of carnivores like jackals, wolves and leopards lurk amid the cane crops which are ready for harvest. Recently, a pack of wolves killed two goats at the village," a senior official said.

Animal attacks have become frequent in the area since the region falls under the Social Forestry Zone. Following this, the Forest Department had run frequent awareness classes in the villages nearby. The officials had also given specific instructions to parents not to let children sleep alone in the open, especially during the harvest season. According to a report, this is because herbivores, which are the natural prey of big cats, enter crop fields in search of food and attract carnivores to the area.

In another animal attack case on July 30, a three-year-old girl's body was found in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur district, which borders a forest. A search was conducted just after the child went missing and the girl's body was recovered from the bushes, approximately 200 meters from her shack. The body was so badly mauled that only parts of her head and shoulders could be seen. There were no traces of her remaining organs. Though the pug marks of jackals were found in the area, police believed the child was first attacked by some other animal.