Toddler kidnapped, buried alive in Ludhiana: Mother had called up accused after her girl went missing

The accused had kidnapped and buried her neighbour’s two-year-old toddler alive due to rivalry with her parents; the accused was to shift her house the next day

A day after a woman kidnapped the two-year-old daughter of her neighbour and buried her alive, police said the mother had called the accused after her daughter went missing.

The toddler had been playing near the gate of her house when her neighbour kidnapped her and buried her alive. (HT Photo)

The mother of the victim said the accused, Neelam had kidnapped Dilroz around 2.15pm, while she was playing near the gate of their house.

“I remember calling out to Dilroz, asking her to come inside and sleep for a while. However, when she did not respond, I went to get her, but she was nowhere to be found. One of Neelam’s sons told me that his mother had taken Dilroz on her scooter. I called Neelam, asking her to take care of Dilroz as she is used to sleeping after lunch, but Neelam said Dilroz was not with her. I kept on searching for her. Later, other children playing on the street said they had seen Dilroz with Neelam, after which we alerted the police,” said the victim’s mother, Kiran, who lost consciousness on seeing her daughter’s corpse.

The police scanned CCTV cameras and saw Neelam take away Dilroz. When interrogated, the accused confessed to murder. Neelam and her parents had sold their house and were shifting to a new location. It was their last day in the house and they had shifted most of their things to the new house.

Victim bludgeoned twice, reveals autopsy

The postmortem report on Monday revealed the horror and pain the toddler had to endure before she finally suffocated to death.

The doctors found that the accused, Neelam, had bludgeoned the victim, Dilroz, twice, before burying her in a pit. The three doctors – Dr Ripudaman, Dr Varun Saggar and Dr Gurwinder Kaur – who conducted the postmortem found two injury marks on the toddler’s head –one on the forehead, and one on the back of her head. The injuries were made with a heavy and blunt object or by smashing her head against something hard, they said, while ruling the cause of death to be suffocation.

After postmortem, the body was handed over to the family who carried out the last rites. The accused was remanded two days in police custody.

Kidnapped girl with intention to kill

Sub-Inspector Balkar Singh said Neelam had kidnapped Dilroz with the intention to kill, but had not decided how she would go about it. “When she reached an under-construction colony in the Salem Tabri area, she found a pit in a vacant plot adjoining a field and decided to bury her.”

Neelam said she had beaten up the toddler when she had cried and then had made her lie face down in the pit. She had filled the pit with soil and returned home. The victim’s grandfather, Shaminder Singh, said he had scolded the accused’s sons for creating a ruckus in the street, and she had nursed a grudge against him since the incident.