'Hunger' takes the lives of 3 minor sisters in east Delhi

Hunger appears to have killed three minor sisters on Tuesday in Mandawali area of east Delhi. Though the police are still awaiting the second post-mortem report, the doctors at Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Hospital here said the first autopsy revealed that the girls died due to 'starvation'.

The police said the three victims 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 went to the house, they discovered 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.

The mother, along with the neighbours, took the kids to LBS Hospital, where they were declared brought dead.

"The family had shifted to Mandawali a few days back," said Singh, adding 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.

Saxena said a second post-mortem was conducted at a different hospital because "in such a sensitive case, there is a need to be doubly sure."

She said the second post-mortem revealed the same cause of death: starvation.

--IANS

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