HISAR/PANIPAT: Panipat police investigating the suspicious drowning of a six-year-old girl at a wedding have uncovered a shocking series of child killings allegedly carried out by a 34-year-old woman — including the murder of her own toddler son.
According to investigators, the accused, Poonam, has confessed to killing four children. Police say she admitted she was driven by an urge to harm children she believed were “more attractive” than her own, and that she murdered her son out of fear he had witnessed one of the earlier crimes. The other three victims were young girls related to her, whose deaths had initially been dismissed as tragic accidents.
Poonam, a resident of Bhavar village in Sonipat, was arrested on Tuesday. She has a surviving four-year-old son, and her husband is a farmer. Police allege she lured the latest victim, six-year-old Vidhi, into filling a plastic tub with water before drowning her.
Panipat SP Bhupendra Singh said police were alerted on December 1 that a child had drowned in a tub inside a home in Naultha village, about 15km from Panipat. Only the child’s head was submerged, prompting officers to call a forensic team. A postmortem conducted at the Civil Hospital indicated homicide. Based on a complaint by Vidhi’s grandfather, Pal Singh, a case was registered at Israna police station against unknown persons.
Vidhi, who also hailed from Bhavar, had come with her family to attend a wedding. Late Monday night, as the baraat prepared to leave, the family realised she was missing. Her grandmother, Ompati, eventually found the storeroom on the first floor locked from the outside. When she opened it, she discovered Vidhi lying face down in a tub of water. The child was rushed to Israna Medical College, where she was declared dead.
Police questioned all those present at the venue. When Vidhi’s aunt, Poonam, was interviewed, officers noticed inconsistencies in her statements. During sustained questioning, she confessed, police said.
Investigators revealed a disturbing pattern. Poonam allegedly used the same method — drowning children in tubs of water — in each case. Married in 2019, she reportedly killed her first child, three-year-old Shubham, in 2023. Earlier that same year, she is accused of drowning her sister-in-law’s nine-year-old daughter, Ishika, in a water tank at the family’s home in Bhavar. Fearing that Shubham might expose her, she allegedly killed him soon after. Both deaths were believed to be accidental at the time.
In August this year, police say she drowned her cousin’s six-year-old daughter, Jiya, at her maternal home in Siwah village — another death initially presumed to be accidental.
Police are continuing their investigation and reviewing earlier accidental deaths in the family to ensure no other cases were overlooked.
