Representative image for an arrest.
Credit: iStock Photo
Chandigarh: A 32-year-old woman from Haryana allegedly murdered three girls over the past two years as she developed "hatred for them due to their beauty" and even killed her three-year-old son to avoid suspicion, police said on Wednesday.
The chilling details of the crimes were revealed when Panipat police cracked the case of a six-year-old girl's death on Monday, where the accused woman, identified as Poonam, allegedly followed the same modus operandi -- drowning the victim in water-filled tubs or tanks.
Panipat Superintendent of Police Bhupender Singh said the accused appears to be a psychopath and targeted her niece in the latest incident after she had come to attend a wedding with her family.
The three girl victims-- two aged six and one nine -- were related to the woman. Before the murder on Monday, the families of the victims had accepted the deaths as accidental and had performed their last rites.
The six-year-old girl, Vidhi, went missing during a wedding function on Monday in Naultha village. She was later found dead by her family in a storeroom on the first floor of the house with her face down in a plastic tub filled with water, her head submerged, her feet outside. A police team investigated the crime from various angles and on Wednesday arrested Poonam, Vidhi's aunt, on charges of murder.
It is alleged that after the wedding guests had left the house, Poonam lured the girl to the room and drowned her in the tub, then bolted the door from the outside and came down, according to the police.
During questioning, the SP said the accused revealed the other murders. "She killed two children, including her son, in Bhawar in 2023, and a girl in Sewah in August this year," the SP told reporters in Panipat.
She has one more child, he said.
When questioned in detail about the motive behind the killing, the SP said the accused told the police that "jo sundar bachhiyan hain unse inko nafrat si hai (She harboured hate for beautiful girls)".
Singh said the woman, who belongs to Sewah village in Panipat, was married in Sonipat's Bhawar village in 2019.
The SP quoted the woman as saying that as soon as she saw a beautiful girl, she would get jealous that the child would grow up to be more beautiful than her (usko chidd machti hai kahi bade hokar issay sundar na ban jaye).
"After her marriage, she indulged in such things. She appears to be a psycho type. She is not very educated," the SP said.
He ruled out any child sacrifice angle behind the murders.
The woman told the police that in 2023, she had drowned her sister-in-law's nine-year-old daughter in a water tank at home in Bhawar village, Sonipat, according to the police.
Fearing that her family might suspect her, she had killed her own 3-year-old son, Shubham, too, they alleged.
In August 2025, she allegedly drowned her cousin's six-year-old daughter in a water tank in Sewah village.
The officials said that police stations concerned have been informed.