A 75-year-old woman has been arrested by the Korle Bu Police in Accra, for allegedly attempting to dump the body of an eight-month- old baby at a refuse site at Korle Gonno in Accra.
A frail-looking Esther Tackie, who claimed the baby was her granddaughter, told the police that the baby had died earlier and was buried but the body had to be exhumed because the owner of the land got angry with them.
According to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mr Freeman Tettey, the Accra Regional Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Police Service, the suspect, who lives close to the Korle Gonno Tuesday Market, had gone to the dump site on Thursday night ostensibly to dump refuse.
While trying to dump the contents of a basket she was carrying, her presence aroused the suspicion of Zoomlion Ghana Limited employees.
They got closer to her and realised that what she was passing off as refuse, was a dead girl dressed in a green sweater and concealed in a cloth. She was therefore arrested and taken to the police station.
During interrogation, she told the police that the child who was the daughter of her son, whose name she gave only as Okaidja, had died after an illness.
According to her, the collective decision taken with the parents of the dead baby was that she should be buried immediately so they buried her behind the house of a man named Gaddafi but Gaddafi got angry and asked them to exhume the body.
It was therefore in the process of dumping the body at the refuse dump that she was arrested.
Mr Freeman said the police were investigating the matter while the suspect had been provisionally charged with murder and the corpse sent to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for autopsy.
He said the police were yet to get into contact with the parents of the child to assist in investigations and urged the public to desist from burying their relatives who did not die in health institutions without reporting to the police, since such deaths were subject to inquest.
An inquest is an enquiry to ascertain the facts concerning a death of an individual but it does not apportion blame to any individual.
“Failure to report such matters to the police is a breach of the law,” he added.
Source: Seth J. Bokpe/Daily Graphic/Ghana
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