Four days after he was branded with hot iron, a one-year-old baby boy died at a hospital in Ahmedabad on June 2, doctors said.

The boy, was branded by a village quack at Vaseda village in Vav tehsil of Banaskantha district on May 29. Branding is administered as a traditional cure for fever and some other medical conditions by quacks in villages, said Sunil Acharya, a doctor at a hospital in Deesa where the boy was treated briefly before being shifted to Ahmedabad.

Vipul was having fever for ten days, and he was branded on the left arm by the village quack on May 29, he said. "The boy had pneumonia. After being branded with hot iron, his condition became critical. We referred the case to Rajasthan Hospital in Ahmedabad on May 31," the doctor said. Gautam Jain, a doctor at Rajasthan Hospital, confirmed that the infected burn injury claimed the boy's life. "This superstitious practice (of branding) still prevails in remote parts of rural areas of the state," Dr Jain said.