The death of six children— three girls and three boys—in a family in a span of nine years at Chembra in Tirur of Kerala's Malappuram district has triggered suspicion amongst the police.
The sixth child, who was just three months old, died at the home of the couple Tharamal Rafeeq and Sabna, on Tuesday. One child died at the age of 4.5 year, while the rest passed away before they turned one.
District police chief U. Abdul Karim said a case of unnatural death has been registered.
People from the locality informed the police about their suspicions after the couple showed undue haste to conduct the funeral. Permission has been granted to exhume the mortal remains of the sixth child and conduct an autopsy.
Two of the children were just three months old when they died, while the other children died at the age of eight months, two months, 40 days, and 4.5 years.
The cops said the couple do not have other children. However, Tharamal Rafeeq and Sabna gave little credit to the suspicions and said that all their children died because of epilepsy.
The relatives of the deceased also said that they had no complaints. The children's paternal aunt said that the autopsy of the third child had been conducted and nothing suspicious was found. Though tests were conducted at various hospitals during the first few deaths, they did not throw up any unnatural findings, relatives claimed.
