A five-year-old boy has been allegedly thrashed and strangulated by his mother and her live-in partner in north-east Delhi’s Khajuri Khas, the police said on Saturday. Three persons, including the couple, have been arrested, they said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North East) Ved Prakash Surya said that the accused have been identified as 22-year-old Anita (name changed) and her partner Dheeraj (22) and relative Pradeep Sharma (27) who allegedly killed the boy as he was “unwanted” and they were unable to take care of his needs.
The police said that around 1 p.m. on Thursday, they received a call regarding a body of a boy found dumped in a gunny bag. A police team reached the spot and sent the body to for post-mortem. A case on charges of murder and disappearance of evidence was registered, they said.
During investigation, CCTV footage of the said spot and nearby areas was obtained and examined after which a van was spotted moving suspiciously around 3 a.m. on Thursday. “Other footage showed that the same van had thrown a yellow gunny bag near the drain in Khajuri Khas. Though the video quality was poor, the police spotted a message written in Hindi on the windscreen of the van,” Mr. Surya said.
The police then checked over 200 vans and before finally zeroing on the one they were searching for, in the early hours of Saturday. They found that one Pradeep Sharma owned the van. “When he was interrogated he confessed to have used his van to dump a child’s body along with his relative Dheeraj and a woman,” the officer said, adding that the other two were then arrested.
Mr. Surya said that during interrogation, Dheeraj told the police that he works at Pradeep’s confectionery unit. In 2017, he met Anita who was already married and had two sons. The two fell in love and she left her husband and started living with Dheeraj and her children.
‘Accused was drunk’
“It was revealed that the couple were not finding it difficult to make both ends meet. On Wednesday night, Dheeraj returned home drunk and started beating the minor victim at their rented accommodation at Dayalpur. The child lost consciousness and on seeing that, the couple got confused and strangulated him,” the officer said, adding that the couple then called up Pradeep and sought his help to dump the body.
