Man drowns 3-year-old daughter in canal to become ‘tantrik’, CCTV gives him away

Dheeraj Kumar wanted to be a ‘tantrik’. He threw his three-year-old daughter in Gurgaon canal and faked a story to mislead the police. He told police his daughter had been kidnapped from near his house in Pyali Chowk area of Faridabad.

A three-year-old girl who had gone missing on July 11, was thrown into a canal by her father to become a tantrik, police have claimed. The child’s body was recovered from the canal in Faridabad the next day.

Three-year-old Sonakshi was drowned in the lake by her father Dheeraj Kumar who wanted to become an occultist. (Picture: Sourced)

The police had registered a case of kidnapping when Dheeraj Kumar of Pyali Chowk area under the Kotwali police station informed the police control room (PCR) that his daughter had been kidnapped. Kumar told the police that he had taken his daughter to a nearby market on a scooter and later dropped her near home. He claimed that she had gone missing after this.

The CCTV footage showed the man leaving with his daughter and returning alone.

“We scanned CCTV footage in the area and got suspicious about him,” a police official investigating the case said. “In the footage the girl was not with him when he returned. When we confronted him, he confessed to his crime,” the official said.

He was arrested and produced in a court on Thursday which remanded him to one-day police custody. “During questioning, Dheeraj said he wanted to get rid of his daughter Sonakshi to become a tantrik,” the police said.

“We sought his one-day police remand to know who advised him to take this step,” Ram Nath, in-charge, NIT-2 police post, said.

Police said that Dheeraj Kumar (centre, sitting) confessed his crime when they quizzed him. (HT Photo)

The girl had gone missing on July 11 and while the police were still investigating the case, a body was spotted at the canal in Sector 8. The body was brought to the BK Hospital where the family identified the child.

The police, however, continued to investigate the abduction angle and scanned the CCTV footage for clues. It was in the footage that they saw Kumar taking his daughter out but returning alone. They then questioned the father who confessed that he had taken his daughter to the canal in Sector 8 and allegedly drowned her there.