- Officials said the 30-year-old was unhappy that she had a daughter and not a son
- She was also undergoing psychiatric treatment for other issues
- The woman, a resident of Navi Mumbai's Kalamboli, has been arrested
A woman from Maharashtra has strangled her six-year-old daughter because she wanted a son and has also told the police she was unhappy because the girl would speak only in Hindi, sources said. She was undergoing psychiatric treatment for other issues as well, they said.
The 30-year-old woman, who lives in Navi Mumbai's Kalamboli, tried to pass off the death as a heart attack, but the plan was foiled by a police officer, who suspected something amiss.
Officials said the woman killed her daughter on Tuesday. The girl's grandmother had also visited the house the same day, but left as she was unable to meet her. When the woman's husband returned home that evening, he found the child unresponsive. She was rushed to a hospital, where the woman initially said the six-year-old had suffered a heart attack.
Senior Police Inspector Rajendra Kote of the Kalamboli police station, however, found the death suspicious and requested a special post-mortem examination. The preliminary report indicated signs of airway obstruction, after which the parents were interrogated. After six hours of questioning, the woman finally confessed to strangling her daughter.
She has been arrested.
Festering Dislike?
The woman, who is a science graduate, and her IT engineer husband got married in 2017, and she gave birth to a girl two years later.
Officials said the girl had difficulty speaking from a young age and also spoke mostly in Hindi.
"I don't want such a child; she doesn't speak properly," she repeatedly told her husband, who tried to reason with her, sources said.
Officials said the woman wanted a boy and was unhappy when she gave birth to a girl. She was also undergoing treatment, for which she had been visiting a psychiatrist.
