A five-year-old girl was beaten to death allegedly by her stepfather here on Saturday night, after she apparently spilled kerosene in the bathroom.
The incident came to light when the girl’s stepfather, identified as Bhaskar Nayak, brought the girl, Pravalika, to Columbia Asia Hospital stating that she fell unconscious while playing.
Doctors, who declared her brought dead, examined Pravalika and found multiple injuries and questioned Bhaskar, who initially feigned ignorance.
The doctors quoted him as saying that Pravalika could have sustained head injuries while playing with her elder sister Raghavi (6).
But when the doctors examined the body, they found that Pravalika had sustained multiple injuries on her head, caused by a blunt object. Both her knees were fractured, the doctors told the police.
Unconvinced with Bhaskar’s explanation, they informed the Amruthahalli police, who rushed to the hospital and picked up Bhaskar for questioning. A detailed questioning led him to confess that he clubbed Pravalika to death in a fit of rage.
According to the police, Bhaskar, after he returned from work around 8.30 p.m. on Saturday, found that Pravalika had spilt kerosene in the bathroom. Enraged, he began beating her with a wooden log until she lost consciousness.
Her mother, Aruna Bai, who works as a house-keeping staff in a company, reached home a while later and realising that Pravalika had lost consciousness, took her to a clinic with the help of Bhaskar, before shifting the girl to the hospital.
Pravalika and Raghavi are Aruna’s children from her first marriage to Ramulu Naidu, who died about five years ago.
The family lived in Kadiri taluk in Andhra Pradesh and after Ramulu’s death, Aruna and her children moved into her mother’s house.
In January this year, Aruna married Bhaskar, her distant relative, after a few months of courtship. Aruna, who had come to work in Bangalore after the marriage, had left her children with her mother. It was only 15 days ago that they were brought to the city, the police said.
Aruna wanted to get them admitted into a school here, but Bhaskar opposed it and asked her to send the children back to their grandmother, according to the police.
“We are investigating the matter,” the police said and added that Bhaskar, who has been arrested, has been charged with murder by the Amruthahalli police.
