For close to one hour, a 35-year-old father tortured his three-year-old daughter. Amrit Bahadur chopped off both the ears of his daughter in the presence of his wife and a 15-year-old daughter. All this he did because he was getting hallucinations for the past seven days.
Six months ago, Bahadur had lost his two-year-old daughter to natural illness. Depressed since then, he became reserve and stopped talking to everyone around him.
“In the wee hours of Wednesday, voices in my head were asking me repeatedly to make my daughter cry as much as I can. If I do so, she will stay alive and nothing wrong would happen to her,” Bahadur told the investigators.
Senior police officials told The Pioneer that they had received a call from the Tahirpur area around 2.30 am. locals in the area said that the horror unfolded at the house of Amrit Bahadur when they heard screams of a child.
“We heard that the cries of a child were growing over the time and when we went into their house, we saw that the three-year-old daughter of Amrit was bleeding profusely. He had chopped off her ears,” said Rakesh, a neighbour.
A senior police official said, “At around 1.30am, unable to sleep because of the buzzing voices in his head, Bahadur on the command of those voices threw water at her minor child who was sleeping. Within a few minutes, the child woke up. In a bid to irritate her, he slapped her and the child began crying. However, not satisfied with her wails, Bahadur took the daughter to their rooftop where he took out a kitchen knife and slowly started cutting her ears. Mother and the sister of the poor child tried to intervene but they too were slapped and rebuked.
“With the timely intervention of the neighbours of Amrit Bahadur, police were informed. The team from GTB Enclave police station took the bleeding three-year-old to the GTB Hospital where she was admitted,” added the official.
Hours later, the doctors informed the police that the child is out of danger. Meanwhile, sources said that the minor girl has been shifted to AIIMS and doctors are planning to stitch back the ears of the baby girl.
Nupur Prasad, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) said, “We have arrested Amrit Bahadur and have registered a case under relevant sections of the India Penal Code (IPC) at the GTB Enclave police station. Further investigation is on”.