A two-year-old Indian girl born with four arms and four legs is undergoing a massive operation. Doctors hope to remove the extra limbs, spinal column, kidneys and other body parts of her “parasitic twin” – a conjoined twin who stopp

The girl, named Lakshmi after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, was born in a poor village in the Indian state of Bihar. She is one of a pair of conjoined twins, but the only one with a head.  

Lakshmi’s parents had to hide her for several months after a circus tried to buy the girl.  

Without the operation Lakshmi would not be able to walk or crawl and would not survive until adolescence.     

Now a team of surgeons at Sparsh Hospital in India’s Bangalore are carrying out a free operation that will let Lakshmi have a normal body. The operation is expected to last around 40 hours.

They have already managed to separate the fused spines and say the child is responding well.