The accused has been identified as Poonam, who allegedly drowned the child in a water tub. A woman was arrested in Haryana’s Panipat after she killed a six-year-old child amid wedding festivities in their family, police said on Wednesday. The accused has been identified as Poonam, originally from Siwah village in Panipat, who was married in Bhawar village, Sonipat. Poonam was presented before a court Wednesday, following which she was sent to police custody.
The accused’s husband, Naveen, and the victim’s father, Sandeep, are cousins. The six-year-old suddenly disappeared from the celebrations on Monday, following which family members began searching for the child. The complaint registered by the deceased’s grandfather states that there was a wedding function in their family from November 30 to December 1, for which several guests had arrived, including the accused, Superintendent of Police Bhupender Singh said.
According to the investigators, the woman committed the crime on December 1 when all the guests were out of the house and she saw the victim climbing the stairs. Police said the accused then followed the child to the terrace and spoke to her. “After having her placed in a plastic tub filled with water outside the storeroom, she drowned the child in the tub, then bolted the door from the outside, and came down,” the police said.
Police launched an investigation, during which it was revealed that that the victim’s paternal aunt had killed her. SP Singh said that Poonam had confessed to the crime while being questioned. “During interrogation, the accused woman told the police that she was irritated by beautiful girls,” he added. The accused further confessed to killing three children earlier, including her own son.
“The accused woman told police that in January 2023, she had drowned her own three-year-old son and her sister-in-law’s nine-year-old daughter in a water tank at home in Bhavad village,” the SP said, adding that Poonam had killed her son to avoid suspicion in the nine-year-old’s death. Poonam also murdered her cousin’s 6-year-old daughter earlier this year in August at her parents’ home in Siwah, SP Singh said. “The family then considered the children’s deaths accidental and performed their last rites,” Singh said, adding that Poonam “committed these crimes one after the other.”
