TIRUVANNAMALAI: In a chilling turn of events, the postmortem of 25-year-old Umadevi, who was five months pregnant and allegedly died by suicide after killing her toddler daughter, has revealed that her unborn child was male — contradicting an earlier illegal scan which misidentified the foetus as female.
Health officials at Tiruvannamalai Government Medical College and Hospital confirmed the finding on Friday, intensifying scrutiny into the chain of tragic events that unfolded earlier this week in Karikalampadi village.
According to police, Umadevi and her husband had travelled to Tirupati on Monday for an unlawful prenatal sex determination test. Based on the scan — which inaccurately identified the foetus as female — her in-laws allegedly began pressuring her to terminate the pregnancy.
When she refused, a confrontation broke out, during which Umadevi was allegedly assaulted. Just hours later, she and her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Meghanasree were found dead in a well near their home in Kilpennathur.
Four people, including her husband and his parents, were arrested on Wednesday under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act, 1998.
When asked if the postmortem revelation would change the legal charges, a senior officer stated that the crime remains unchanged. “Sex determination itself is illegal, regardless of the result,” he clarified.
Special police teams are now investigating the illegal scan centre in Tirupati and possible links in neighbouring districts.