Navi Mumbai: A 30-year-old woman has been arrested by Kalamboli Police for allegedly smothering her six-year-old daughter because she wanted a son and was unhappy that the child did not speak fluently and communicated only in Hindi.
Senior inspector Rajendra Kote said the accused, Supriya Mhamunkar, a BSc graduate, lived with her husband Pramod, an IT engineer, at Guru Sankalp Society in Sector 1E, Kalamboli. She initially claimed that the child died due to illness on December 23, following which an accidental death case was registered. However, a post-mortem conducted at Panvel sub-district hospital revealed that the girl had died due to smothering.
Police said the mother emerged as the prime suspect as she had been undergoing treatment for depression since 2024 and was under psychiatric care. She was detained for questioning on Friday, during which she allegedly confessed to killing the child by blocking her nose and mouth and pressing her abdomen with her knee.
According to investigators, the woman told police she had repeatedly expressed her desire for a son and wanted another child, but her husband was unwilling. Enraged and distressed, she took the extreme step of killing her daughter.
Inspector Kote said the husband also disclosed that the woman had earlier attempted to smother the child when she was just a month old in 2019, while the family was living in Pali in Raigad district. The infant was rushed to a local doctor after she became unresponsive, but no complaint was filed at the time as the woman claimed the child had choked accidentally during sleep.
The accused was produced before the Panvel court, which remanded her to police custody till December 29.
