Woman confesses to child's murder

The case of a 15-month-old child being snatched from its mother by a masked man took a twist with the child's mother Rekha Naik confessing to murdering it as part of a failed suicide attempt on Friday.

The police had launched a manhunt for the masked miscreant who had kidnapped the child Sanvika Naik. They had traced the child's body in Kubja River. Sanvika's body was found stuck among the branches in the river about two km away from Kumtiberu near Kundapur, a police source said.

Initially, Rekha had informed the police that a masked intruder had entered the house from the backdoor and had fled with her child in wee hours on Thursday. She gave up the chase after failing to cross the river along with her five-year-old son due to strong currents. On further interrogation by police, the mother broke down and confessed to having jumped to the river with her daughter and son to commit suicide. However, she and her son survived while her daughter was washed away.

Kundapur DySP Dinesh Kumar told DH that the postmortem of the child was done at KMC in Manipal.