Shillong, June 19: In a rare incident, an infant was killed allegedly by a hardcore criminal who entered a house at Mission Compound, Mawkhar here in the wee hour on Tuesday, and took the baby from the bed after assaulting the mother.

Police said that the baby was three weeks old, and the suspected murderer has been arrested.

Narrating the incident, sources said that the incident happened immediately after the FIFA World Cup match between England and Tunisia ended on Tuesday morning. The criminal managed to enter the house and snatched the baby from the mother who was sleeping in the same bed, sources said.

Police said that the baby was found at the residence inside a bucket which has some water. Police suspected that the criminal had abandoned the baby after committing the crime.

According to police, the masked criminal first assaulted the mother of the baby who was sleeping. After injuring the mother, the criminal snatched the baby and ran away.

A postmortem was conducted at Shillong Civil Hospital.