Letter to cops reveals pre-planned murder of baby, parents booked

Thane police book parents for murder of 18-month-old girl, found guilty of injuring her severely, carrying out last rites with fraudulent death certificate.

THANE: The Mumbra police have booked the parents of an 18-month-old girl child for murder after they were found guilty of grievously injuring the baby and carrying out her last rites after obtaining a death certificate through fraudulent means. The police were set on the trail by a letter received on April 4 by the Zone 1 DCP’s office and forwarded to them for investigation.

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The letter was signed with the name ‘Santosh Mahadev’ but the number and address mentioned were non-existent. The Mumbra police team, headed by crime PI Sanjay Davane, then went to different burial grounds to check whether any child of this age was buried there. After perusing the registers, the team found that an 18-month-old baby called Labiba Shaikh was buried in the Kausa Mumbra kabristan. In the same register, the police found that the family had a death certificate from Mumbra’s Medford Hospital.

Sources said the police then searched different hospitals to check whether they had treated a little girl on March 18. A doctor at Prime Hospital told them that a parent had called him on March 18, and later came with the girl who had severe head injuries and was bleeding badly. The parents said the girl was suffering from some problem, because of which her skin had ripped and was bleeding. The doctor replied that the wound was clearly not on account of an allergy or any other medical problem but an injury with some weapon. He then dressed the wound and told the parents to take the baby to a bigger hospital.

After getting the information, the police went to the accused’s home to question the parents, Jahid and Nurani Shaikh. When the parents gave reasons for the child’s bleeding that were different from the ones they had told the doctor, the police realised that something was not quite right and detained them immediately.

“During the course of the investigation, we found that the accused, who is the head of a madrasa, beat his four-year-old elder daughter as well when he went to his village at Jharkhand in 2022,” said a police officer. “She also suffered head injuries. He then brought her to Mumbai and took her to KEM Hospital. The Bhoiwada police had booked him for beating her.”

The police said that through the accused’s behaviour and statements, it was clear that it was a pre-planned murder and the husband and wife had both beaten the girl with a sharp weapon. The investigation on the motive as well as how the parents procured a death certificate in order to bury the body is on.