Thaindian News

Toronto, Oct 20 (IANS) Canadian police are still in the dark about the death of a young Sikh woman and three newborns in the city of Calgary more than a week ago.
Twenty-seven-year-old Harsimrat Kahlon and three newborn babies were dead in their apartment Oct 5 when the woman’s partner called police.

As police await autoposy reports, it is still not clear whether the kids belonged to the woman and her partner (also called common-law husband in the West) Harnek Mahal.

The bodies of the kids were found inside suitcases in highly decomposed state.

Chandigarh-born Kahlon had moved to Canada in 1999. Four years ago, she got estranged from her family and moved out. She had been living with her common-law husband Harnek Mahal since 2006.

The family of the woman had no clues as to whether the kids belonged to Kahlon. Hospital records show that she had given birth to a child in 2005. She was reportedly planning to go to India in November to get married.

Police say her common-law husband is not a suspect in her death but they have suspicions about the death of the three kids.

Since the Sikh woman lived an isolated life estranged from her family, police don’t rule out that Kahlon was an unwilling mother or suffered from post-partum (after-birth) depression. There have many reports of women suffering from post-partum depression killing their new-borns or committing suicide.

About 15 to 20 per cent women suffer from post-partum depression in the western world where there is little family or social support for women after child birth. A woman can slip into post-partum depression one to three months after birth. But they can afflicted by depression even from 12 to 18 months after delivery.

So did Kahlon kill herself and the babies because of post-partum depression?

There are no answers yet. But the Sikh woman definitely was isolated in her life as she had cut off all links with her family in 2005.