A two-day-old baby girl was stabbed 100 times with a screwdriver and then dumped at a temple amid a spate of newborn murders.
Police were called to reports of a baby wrapped in a blanket early lying next to a temple in Bhopal, India, on Thursday, September 24.
Investigators first thought the baby had been savaged in an animal attack before an autopsy proved her wounds to be consistent with a screwdriver.
CCTV is now being used in the area to track down the killer following a series of female infanticide in India.
The child is believed to have been born at home just two days before the shocking murder, and is one of three baby killings in the last week.
In India, the male-female birth ratio, the ratio of boys to girls in younger age groups, is used to support claims female infanticide to be an under-reported phenomenon.
The national ratio in India is estimated to be at 1.11 in comparison to 1.05 in the United Kingdom and United States.
A natural ratio is said to be 106, with a range of between 103 and 107.
Any number higher than 107 suggests that infanticide or abortions have skewed the proportion of males in a population.
In July 2019, officials in a northern India state investigated whether sex-selective abortions or infanticide had been conducted.
Government data revealed not a single girl was born in 132 village in three months.
The Uttarkashi district administration marked the 132 villages as a “red zone” and a team of 25 officials has been formed to investigate the matter.
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Activist and academic, Nivedita Menon, said: “This is completely unheard of that for three months, no girl child was born in so many villages.
“There must have been some process by which sex determination was done illegally and abortions were carried out.”