PUNE: A woman from Dapodi, who had registered a police complaint on Wednesday that her 10-day-old female child had been kidnapped, confessed a day later that she had thrown the baby into the Mula River at Bopodi, reported Times of India.
The 26-year-old woman, Reshma Shaikh, has been arrested under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destroying evidence) of the Indian Penal Code. She has been remanded in police custody till August 19.
Senior inspector Laxman Borate of the Khadki police station said Reshma killed the baby as she did not want a girl child.
On Wednesday, Reshma had registered a complaint alleging that a woman sitting along with her in a moving auto-rickshaw had snatched the baby and pushed her out of the vehicle. The auto-rickshaw driver and the woman had fled with the baby, she had complained.
Borate told
TOI, "We found contradictions in her statement. One CCTV camera captured images of her holding the baby while another camera showed her without the child. A sniffer dog picked up her trail to Bopodi chowk. When confronted with evidence, she confessed to having killed the baby."
Borate said Reshma had wrapped the baby in a plastic bag before throwing it into the river. The child's body hasn't been found yet.
Borate said Reshma's husband is a tailor. The couple was married five years ago and has an elder daughter and a son. "A third child, a girl, had died of pneumonia at a government hospital in Pimpri. Reshma wanted to get rid of this fourth child even though there was no pressure from her family," he added.
