Chandigarh, Feb. 9: A new-born girl wrapped in woollens was found abandoned in the Golden Temple complex with a letter, purportedly written by the mother, requesting that the infant be looked after.
“We have no option but to raise the girl,” SGPC secretary Dalmegh Singh said from Amritsar, alluding to the appeal to Avtar Singh Makkar, who heads the body responsible for the upkeep of Sikh shrines.
An SGPC official said the important thing to realize was “fate and her mother had willed the child to live” in a state where aborting girl children was rampant.
The girl was found on Thursday in a place called Dukh Bhanjan Beri where devotees bow before taking a dip in the temple pond.
Officials said the discovery of the baby inside the temple complex was significant. “Instead of being killed, the infant was left inside the temple in the care of God,” an SGPC source said.
Many gurdwaras now keep cradles where parents can leave baby girls instead of killing them. There have been demands within the SGPC to make couples take a vow at the time of marriage not to abort girl children in the womb.
Punjab has the lowest sex ratio in the country. The declining ratio, especially in the newborn-to-six age group — 875 girls per 1,000 boys in 1991, and 793 per 1,000 in 2001 — shows girls are still seen as a burden on families.
The Sikh rehat maryada (code of conduct) forbids believers from having any relationship with those who kill their daughters. The SGPC is also thinking of ostracizing those guilty of female foeticide.
