MUMBAI: A 33-year-old woman who killed her three-month-old daughter by drowning her and lodged a police complaint by concocting a story that someone had kidnapped her daughter was arrested by Kalachowkie police on Thursday.
The arrested woman, Sapna Bajrang Makdum, told police she killed her daughter as she was being constantly harassed by her husband and in-laws for a male child.
The three-month-old was Makdum’s second daughter. The city crime branch’s unit 3 got Makdum to confess the truth and handed her over to Kalachowkie police.
Makdum, a resident of Parel, has been arrested on charges of killing the newborn and dumping her body in a storage water drum in her house.
Police officials said they will produce Makdum before a court and seek her custody. Meanwhile, police have recovered the girl’s body and sent it for post-mortem to know the exact cause of death. DCP (zone 4) Vijay Patil confirmed the arrest.
On Wednesday, Makdum had lodged a complaint that an unknown woman had kidnapped her second daughter while she was away for work.
Based on her and her husband’s complaint, police registered a kidnapping case and scanned CCTV footage.
One blurred image of a woman walking with a newborn child was picked out, and based on that, police drew a sketch of the suspect and circulated it for identification.
Meanwhile, the city crime branch team suspected foul play and grilled Makdum.
“Normally, baby boys are kidnapped, but here the case was uncommon, the victim was a girl child from a middle-class family. We studied the body language of the complainant and we were sure there was something amiss,” an officer said.
Police found out Makdum’s first daughter was born in 2013.
