RAMANATHAPURAM: A day after a five-year-old girl was found dead in a well near her house in MSK Nagar, Ramanathapuram Town police on Monday arrested her aunt on charges of allegedly killing the child following a family dispute.
A probe revealed Sabarika (22) threw the girl, Sai Deepthi, into the well at night as she resented her in-laws favouring the deceased child’s mother, Selvi, and her two children over herself and her one-year-old child.
Police stated that the probe found no involvement of outsiders and indicated that the incident was the result of a family dispute.
Sai Deepthi’s body was found in a well in the neighbourhood as the police launched a search after Selvi filed a missing complaint at the Ramanathapuram Town police station.
The body was recovered by a team of the Fire and Rescue Services Department and then sent to the Government Hospital, Ramanathapuram, for postmortem.
Police sources said that the autopsy revealed that there were no external injuries on the child’s body and preliminary findings suggested that the cause of death was drowning. To determine whether the child had accidentally fallen into the well or was pushed into it, police questioned her relatives, neighbours and other residents in the area.
The investigation allegedly revealed that the child’s aunt Sabarika grudged her in-laws for their partiality to Selvi and her two twin children, viz., Sai Deepthi and Saru Nithika.
Sabarika was arrested and steps are being taken to produce her before the court for judicial remand.