LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - A police officer in the city of Khanewal in the eastern Punjab province, Mohammed Anwarsaid says that the child was born at a hospital in the nearby town of Kacha Khuh.

Father Chand Khan set about planning how to dispose of her body, authorities say. According to police, he told relatives that the baby was born dead and arranged a funeral for the girl.

The girl let out a terrified wail during the service, and Chand's macabre plot became readily apparent.

Residents called police after seeing Kham take the baby to the graveyard.

Khan has four other children and will be sentenced to death if he is found guilty in the murder of his daughter. Police say they will now exhume the child's body to perform an autopsy.

Khan's wife was reportedly still at the hospital when the baby was buried.

A doctor at al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Farooq says he saw the child after her birth and that she was healthy and alive but had a fairly large head and "abnormal" features.

"I am a doctor at the same hospital where this child was born. This man came to me yesterday with a request that I should do something to dispose of his child, but I snubbed him and said get out," Farooq says.

"No one has the right to kill anyone because of his or her physical deformity."

Pakistani human rights activist Farzana Bari has condemned the incident. A prominent Pakistani religious scholar Raghab Naeemi demanded a stern punishment for the man if he is found guilty.

The case has also shed light on prejudices in Pakistan against children, especially girls, who are born with physical deformities.

There have been other reports of Pakistani parents killing their children out of extreme poverty and an inability to take care of them.

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