E-Paper
Pune woman throws daughter in river, files fake kidnapping case
The woman had approached the police with a misleading complaint of kidnapping against a female co-passenger and the rickshaw driver.
A woman named Reshma Sheikh (26) was detained by the city police on Wednesday for throwing her daughter in the Mula river from the Sanghvi bridge on Tuesday while travelling in an autorickshaw. The woman had approached the police with a misleading complaint of kidnapping against a female co-passenger and the rickshaw driver instead.
After preliminary investigation, the police did not find the details provided by the woman in support of the incident she was narrating. After questioning Sheikh for hours, she confessed to have thrown her 10-day-old daughter into the river, the police said.
However, police found holes in her story during preliminary investigation.After questioning Sheikh for hours, she confessed to have thrown her 10-day-old daughter into the river, the police said.
"Her sister-in-law had given birth to a baby boy five days before her child was due. She was expecting a boy but she delivered a girl. That is the preliminary reason behind the woman's drastic step," said Deepak Sakore, deputy commissioner of police (crime) Zone 4.
The suspect’s version and other evidence like CCTV footages did not match. In the footage, the woman is seen walking with the baby at a time when she claims to have boarded the autorickshaw, senior police inspector Lakshman Borate of Khadki police station said.
A police dog squad found the scent of the woman till Bopodi chowk. The evidence mapping her movements were collected from footages by CCTVs installed by the police, a church in the vicinity and a ragpicker’s statement, Sakhore said. “The CCTV footage played a major role in identifying the suspect. The mobile tower mapping technique also traced her at the said location.”
Sheikh is a mother of two, a girl and a boy, and had lost a girl child in the past, said senior police inspector Lakshman Borade of Khadki police station. The woman is married to a tailor named Riyasat Sheikh who is in his mid-thirties. The family lives in Bombay colony of Dapodi region, the police said.
According to the police, the suspect was walking home from Shewale hospital, a few kilometres from Sanghvi bridge, where she was undergoing post-natal treatment. In her complaint, the woman claimed to have been with her elder daughter but the hospital authorities and CCTV footage at the hospital reveal that she was at the hospital with her husband and the baby. Riyasat left the hospital premises before his wife, who later walked towards the bridge before allegedly wrapping her daughter in a piece of cloth and throwing her in the river.
The police and rescue teams have started looking for the child after the woman confessed. The woman has been detained and a case under Section 302 for murder and Section 201 for destruction of evidence of Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against her.
