TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 23-year-old Nepalese language student after the remains of a newborn baby were found stuffed in a closet at a dormitory in Arakawa Ward, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Apr. 10).
Thapa Radha Kumari was taken into custody on Friday on suspicion of abandoning a corpse.
According to the Arakawa Police Station, Kumari is accused of concealing the infant’s body inside a closet at her Japanese language school dormitory sometime between April 6 and April 7.
“The child I gave birth to died, and I didn’t know what to do,” the suspect was quoted by investigators upon admitting to the allegations.
On the morning of April 7, fellow dormitory residents noticed bleeding from the woman’s lower body and called emergency services. At the hospital she was taken to, she explained that she had given birth.
Officers from Arakawa Police Station, who received the call, confirmed the infant’s presence at the scene. The infant was found wrapped in towels and placed in a plastic bag inside the closet of her room.
Occurred in isolation
The woman is believed to have come to Japan in April of last year, and has described the infant’s father as “a former boyfriend who is Nepalese.”
Police are currently awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the baby’s exact cause of death. Investigators are actively looking into the circumstances surrounding the birth, which authorities suspect occurred in isolation.
The case shines a renewed spotlight on an ongoing issue of isolated births among foreign students and technical trainees in Japan, many of whom hide their pregnancies out of fear that they will be deported or stripped of their visa status by their schools or employers.
