An unmarried mother delivers secretly at home and strangles her healthy newborn within two hours of birth out of shame. She shows no evidence of mental illness. Under Indian law she is charged under:

• A Infanticide under a special statute providing a reduced sentence
• B Murder under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita ✓
• C Culpable homicide not amounting to murder, automatically
• D Concealment of birth only, since the child died before registration

Explanation

Unlike England, where the Infanticide Act treats a mother who kills her child under 12 months while disturbed by lactation as guilty of the lesser crime of infanticide, India has no equivalent statute. Killing a live-born child is simply murder under the BNS, and lactational disturbance confers no automatic mitigation. Concealment of birth applies to secret disposal of a corpse and does not apply when the child was born alive and killed, so option D is untenable.

Reference: Parikh's Textbook of Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, 7th ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

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