When E Smitha Chakravarthy and her husband E V R Chakravarthy came visiting to Texas from Mumbai this January with their 10-month-old adopted child Rohit, to show the baby to their relatives, little did the couple know the horror in store.

A month later the baby died after allegedly falling from the bed. The mother has been charged with ‘aggravated assault’. If convicted, she faces death penalty. Rohit apparently rolled off the bed while sleeping with his mother on February 16 in Mission, TX, and was considered brain dead on February 20 by doctors at Valley Baptist.

A preliminary autopsy report listed the cause of death as ‘blunt force head trauma’. ‘‘It is my opinion that the (child)... died as a result of blunt force head trauma,’’ Dr Norma Jean Farley said in the report. ‘‘There are skull fractures ... haemorrhages ... scalp contusions, all consistent with severe blunt head trauma. There are also multiple patterned injuries, especially on the lower extremities, consistent with bite marks.’’

The Judge handling the case granted a temporary restraining order preventing the hospital from disconnecting life support devices until after February 25, on religious grounds. The restraining order was requested as Chakravarthys as Hindus consider it bad luck to die on a Tuesday, the couple’s lawsuit states.

The boy’s adoptive grandparents had also called from India to insist the child not be allowed to die before Thursday because they had read astrological signs, the lawsuit states.

Chakravarthy’s lawyer Reynaldo Garza III said in a telephone interview to The Indian Express that though Smitha Chakravarthy is not in jail—she and her husband are staying with her sister in Mission—her passport has been impounded. Her husband, who was not on the bed when the baby fell off, has been released without charges.

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