On Friday, a couple from South Korea, slapped with the charges of leaving their baby daughter unattended, while they were busy raising a "virtual" child over the internet, went on trial.

The couple appeared in a court in Suweon, which is in the south of Seoul, and was slammed with charges of negligent homicide, as was shared by an official in the city's prosecutors' office.

The 41 year old husband and 25 year old wife were placed under arrest in March, and they had been on the run every since September 24 last year, when their three month old baby was found dead.

As was revealed by a post-mortem examination, the dead baby had suffered a long period of malnutrition. The couple was reportedly raising an online girl child while their own prematurely born daughter was left alone at home. She was fed just once a day between the 12-hour period that were spent at an internet cafe.

The police have shared that the couple, who had met in 2008, became overly obsessed with raising "Anima" in "Prius Online", a popular online roll-playing game.

"They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby", an investigator shared.