Stepmom kills 6-year-old in Andhra, dumps body in canal

An alleged kidnap of a second standard girl child turned into a gruesome murder case in the coastal city of Kakinada of East Godavari district.

The girl Deepti Sree went missing from her school in Jagannadhapuram on Friday. Her body stuffed into a gunny bag was fished out of “Upputeru” a brackish water channel on Friday by the Dharmadi Satyam team that has retrieved the ill-fated boat near Kachchalur.

Adnan Nayeem Asmi, the superintendent of police told media that the child was killed by her stepmother Santhi Kumari as she was jealous of her husband Shyam Prasad treating his daughter Deepti Sree from his first wife with affection. Deepti’s mother died a few years ago due to ill health. Worried that her thirteen-month-old son might be neglected in future Santhi Kumar resorted to the murder of her step daughter.

The girl was living in her maternal aunt’s place in Pagadalapet and attending school from there. She was kept there as her father found out that she had torture marks on her body. Every day he used to drop and bring her back from school. But on Friday he couldn’t find his daughter at the school. The father made a complaint with the police that his daughter is missing. Police started searching the CC footage of all important crossroads and bridges of the city. They found Santhi Kumari walking next to the girl, whose face was covered from the glare of onlookers. The police also found footage of Santi Kumari standing next to a gunny bag near Upputeru and walking away with her son.

Police then took her into custody and questioned her. She agreed that she killed her after she was brought back from school by strangulating her. Then she dumped her in a bag and took her to the bridge. She dumped the bag and returned home. She misguided police that the girl was kidnapped. The police took the help of the girl’s father to identify her body and send it to postmortem.