Navi Mumbai: Afsana Shaikh (30), the maid who had assaulted 10-month-old Ritisha at Purva Playschool and Nursery in Kharghar, used to terrorise all children, CCTV footage has revealed.
“When alone, Shaikh was a devil. She had terrorised the children to such an extent that the moment she would spread the mat on the floor, all children would hop in and lie down immediately with closed eyes. In one particular footage, it can be seen that a girl was in the washroom when children lay on the mat. She was hiding in the washroom and waiting for an opportunity for Shaikh’s mind to get diverted so that she could run to the mat. In another footage, it is seen that she changed the diaper of a one-year-old child and simply pushed her on to the floor. She is handicapped and her right hand is a little crooked because of which she uses a stick to access electricity switches. At few instances, she had used that stick to assault children,” said a senior police officer.
All these things happened in the absence of Priyanka Nikam (34), owner of the centre, the police confirmed. “If Nikam had checked the CCTV footage daily, she could have avoided those incidents,” the officer said.
Shaikh and Nikam are in Kalyan jail. On Saturday, the Navi Mumbai police approached Alibag sessions court, appealing for cancellation of Nikam’s judicial custody and seeking police custody. The court on Monday kept the date for hearing on December 22.
The writer is a freelance journalist
