BERHAMPUR: Driven by jealousy over her inability to bear children, a woman throttled her nine-year-old niece to death in Jagannathprasad area of Ganjam district, police said on Thursday.
Ganjam SP Subhendu Patra said the accused, 26-year-old Bidyabharati Moharana, has been arrested for killing the minor daughter of her husband’s sister in Laxmanapalli village.
The girl was reported missing from her uncle’s home in Laxmanapalli at around 11 am on Wednesday. Her body was found wrapped in a polythene sheet near a toilet in the wee hours of Thursday.
Patra said after receiving a missing complaint from the girl’s mother Suni Moharana, police launched an investigation. During interrogation, the accused woman broke down and confessed to the crime.
He said preliminary investigation revealed that Suni along with her two daughters, who lived in Bhubaneswar, had come to his brother Ganesh Moharana’s house in Laxmanapalli village. On Wednesday morning, Ganesh took Suni to the hospital for a health check-up, leaving his two nieces with his wife Bidyabharati.
The SP said after playing outside with other village girls, Suni’s elder daughter returned home at around 1.30 pm and asked her aunt for food. As Bidyabharati was jealous of her mother, she allegedly throttled the girl to death with a cloth, wrapped her body in a polythene sheet and threw it beside an unused toilet near her house.
The accused told police that she could not bear any children even after three years of marriage. Her husband was allegedly not taking her for diagnosis of her infertility. She became angry when Ganesh took his sister for a medical checkup and committed the crime out of jealousy, Patra said.
Police said the girl’s body was sent to the hospital for postmortem. The accused woman was produced in court and remanded in judicial custody.