Girl, 5, Spills Kerosene, Pays With Life

Bhaskar Nayak, who beat Pravalika to death with a wooden log has been arrested and is charged with murder, Amruthahalli police said

BANGALORE: A five-year-old girl was allegedly beaten to death by her stepfather on Saturday night for spilling kerosene in the bathroom of their house, in Amruthahalli police station limits on Saturday night.

The accused, identified as Bhaskar Nayak, a 28-year-old cab driver, took the girl, Pravalika, to a hospital  thinking that she had just lost consciousness. However, the doctors told  him that she is dead.

Upon questioning by doctors, Bhaskar feigned innocence and claimed that Pravalika and her six-year-old sister were fighting over something and she had pushed Pravalika. He said Pravalika may have sustained head injuries and lost consciousness. But when the doctors examined the body, they found that Pravalika had sustained multiple hits on her head with a blunt object and that both her knees were fractured.

They informed the Amruthahalli police.

When the police questioned Bhaskar, he reportedly confessed to assaulting Pravalika.

According to the police, Bhaskar had returned home around 8.30 pm on Saturday to find that Pravalika, while playing, had spilt some kerosene on the bathroom floor. Enraged, he began beating her with a wooden log till she lost consciousness. Around this time, her mother Savitha (name changed), who works as a house keeping staff in a company, reached home and saw the brutal scene. Realising that Pravalika had lost consciousness, the two took her to a nearby hospital  where she was declared brought dead.

The two girls are Savitha’s children from her first marriage to Ramulu, who died about five years ago. The family lived in Kadri in Andhra Pradesh and after Ramulu’s death, Savitha went to her mother’s house with the children.

Last year, Savitha fell in love with Bhaskar, her distant relative. She started living with him from January leaving the children with her mother. It was only 15 days ago the children were brought to the city.

“Bhaskar could not stand the sight of the children and was unhappy with them coming to live with him and was expressing his anger quite often,” the police  said.  They said Pravalika’s sister is in a shock and too afraid to speak to the police.

 “Savitha seems to be taking Bhaskar’s side and is not saying much about his behaviour with the children. We are investigating the matter,” they said.