Baby born with four sets of limbs worshipped as deity in India

The baby boy, who is yet to be named, was born with four legs and four arms, is believed by locals to be the reincarnation of Hindu God Ganesha.

Ganesha is one of the most iconic and widely-worshipped of the millions of deities in the Hindu religion and is represented as an elephant with four arms.

Medical experts on the other hand that the extra limbs are the result of a birth defect from an underdeveloped conjoined twin. Not everybody is buying the scientific explanation.

Kuntalesh Pandey, a worshipper who travelled 115km to take a look of the unusual baby boy, said: “When a friend first sent me a picture I wrote it off as a photoshopped but when he confirmed that it is real I came to see the baby straight away.”

A relative of the child said: “The nurses said he was badly deformed but I could see that this was a sign from God. In fact, this is a miracle, it’s God’s baby. Indian God’s have extra limbs just like this.”

The current condition of the baby's mother, Ureda Khatun, is unknown.

The baby is not the first to be worshipped by Hindus in recent times. Last year, Arshid Ali Khan, 13, who was born with a seven-inch tail, announced he was considering having it removed - despite being worshipped as a deity.

He is believed by many Hindus to be an incarnation of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman.