Lawyer Held For Murder, Year After Adopted Daughter’s Death

In a shocking case, Chintadripet police arrested a lawyer on charges of having murdered his own adopted daughter, after realizing that the four year old had speech disorder.
 

CHENNAI: In a shocking case, Chintadripet police arrested a lawyer on charges of having murdered his own adopted daughter, after realizing that the four year old had speech disorder. Though the murder took place in July 2016, police action came only now, pursuant to the new Chennai city police commissioner A K Viswanathan's instruction to subordinate officers to complete all pending cases in their stations.

According to police, the lawyer, X Gerald and his wife Sangeetha, who works as lecturer in Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University here, adopted the child in May 2016 from a private orphanage. On July 7, 2016, she was rushed to the Child Trust Hospital in Nungambakkam with injuries. However, the doctors declared the child dead on arrival and sent the body to the government hospital for autopsy.

Though the hospital authorities indicated to the investigators that there were serious doubts about causes of the child's death, it was not seriously dealt with, police sources said.

On Thursday, Chintadripet police inspector Sahadevan summoned lawyer Gerald, who lives on Sami Naicken Street in Chintadripet, and questioned him about the murder. Gerald was then booked for offences punishable under the Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) IPC and arrested him. He was remanded in prison after being produced before a magistrate court in Egmore.
 

Gerald told police that they had chosen the child and named her as Mirudula, before realizing that she had an articulation problem. He claimed to have treated her by giving her 'shock treatment'. Police said Gerald had beaten the child and that due to the repeated blows, the child suffered injuries and collapsed on July 7, 2016.

After the child's death and a damning medical/forensic report, the then police inspector Sivamani of Chintadripet police station had searched for Gerald but failed to trace him.