Navi Mumbai: Within 24 hours of finding the body of missing toddler at her own home, Navi Mumbai police have been able to crack the case and has arrested a 29-year-old neighbour.
The accused identified as Mohammed Ansari, originally hailing from Jharkhand, resided with his wife and three sons- aged five, three and two- in the opposite flat that of the victim Harshika Sharma aged two years and ten month old.
According to police, the victim girl often played with the three boys and whenever they fought, their respective mothers used to end up having a verbal brawl.
“The accused wanted to have an end to the verbal brawl and moreover, he had recently lost RS 42,000 in an online game and intended to recover the money from the father of the girl,” deputy commissioner of police (Zone II) Prashant Mohite, said.
The body of the girl was found late in the night in a rexine bag which was dumped on the loft of the bathroom of the house of the deceased. The child lived with her parents and elder brother aged eight on the second floor of Mauli Krupa Building in Devicha Pada. On Tuesday afternoon, she was playing at the common verandah at around 12.30 pm.
According to the initial complaint registered by the father for kidnapping, she had stepped inside the house for a brief period when she went missing. The father of the child, Amrish who was away for work at Kharghar, had received a call from his wife at 1 pm informing him about the missing of the child and unable to trace her in nearby vicinity. After the family and other searched for her frantically and were unable to find her, they lodged a kidnapping case with Taloja police on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday night, after a foul smell started emanating in the house, the family started looking for the source of the smell and found a bag on the loft of their bathroom which was unknown to them and found their daughter in the bag. Taloja police along with Unit III of Navi Mumbai Crime Branch reached the spot with dog squad and started the investigations.
In the investigations, they found that the bag belonged to Ansari. Ansari had found the bag around six months back from a train. According to what he told the police, he asked his children to go down and buy chocolates and gave Rs 20 for the same. His wife was in the bathroom and the deceased child was playing on the veranda.
He picked her up when he found the right opportunity when the child’s mother too went inside. He strangulated her with a shoelace and dumped her in the bag. He could not get time to dispose the body since the police was in their building looking for the child. And when the parents were away from the house in search of the child, he kept the bag on the loft of the bathroom of her own house.
“Prima facie, no other person seems to be involved in the crime. He would be produced before the court on Friday and police custody would be sought for further interrogation,” senior police inspector Pravin Bhagat from Taloja police station said. The unit III of crime branch was lead by police inspector Hanif Mulani.
