Lakshmi 'goddess girl' learns to walk

A three-year old Indian girl worshipped as a goddess after she was born with four arms and four legs has taken her first steps in a baby-walker eight months after surgeons separated her from a conjoined headless twin and reconstructed her body.

Secreted in her home in eastern Bihar state by her parents after a circus tried buying her, Lakshmi Tatma was gurgling joyfully as she trundled around at the weekend clutching a baby walker at a school for the disabled.

But doctors at Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, who successfully operated on her for 27 hours last year, said this was not the end of the ordeal of the baby girl named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi.

They said in addition to punishing rehabilitation she would need additional surgery on her spine and feet to achieve near normalcy.