Tumour is 'devil's child'

2005-05-06 10:36

New Delhi - An Indian girl was dragged to a witch doctor and ostracised for carrying the "devil's child".

But it turned out to be a 15kg tumour not a foetus, it was reported on Friday.

Chhabi Shabar, 17, was ostracised from her village in eastern India and taken to a witch doctor when her stomach started swelling up a few months ago, the Telegraph newspaper reported.

Residents of Dhamaitikri village in West Bengal state declared the unmarried girl must be pregnant. Her poor farmer father took her to a local doctor who also concluded Chhabi was expecting because her abdomen kept growing and she suffered from nausea and breathing problems.

Village elders took Chhabi to a witch doctor who proclaimed she was carrying the "devil's child", the report said. When his prayers didn't help, the villagers ostracised her.

Chhabi's relatives, who lived in Calcutta, took her to a gastroenterologist in the city this week. She could barely walk and had a haemoglobin count of 4gm as compared with the normal count of 12-14 gm.

A sonography revealed that Chhabi was not pregnant, but had a tumour in the abdominal cavity. Doctors said the huge tumour was the size of about five foetuses.

"When we brought it out, her parents were stunned," said doctor Arko Banerjee, who claimed he had never before performed an operation like this. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA