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NEW DELHI: A mother, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly strangulating her baby hours after her birth as she was a girl, has got relief from the Supreme Court which acquitted her by saying that it was “totally unnatural” for the woman to kill her own child. The apex court, while allowing the appeal filed by the woman challenging the March 2010 judgment of Delhi high court upholding her conviction and sentence, said there was no “clear evidence on record” to hold her guilty of the offence.

“It is true that in the post-mortem, the doctor has opined that the death is due to asphyxia and there were strangulation marks, but at the same time, motive is not established and it is unnatural for the appellant-mother to kill her own baby by strangulation,” a bench of justices MM Shantanagoudar and R Subhash Reddy said.

