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According to the Tilak Nagar police, the victim, Beauty Sarkar (7), used to stay with her parents and elder brother near the Noorani Masjid in Chembur. Her father works as a labourer, her mother is a housemaid, and both work most of the day, leaving the children alone at home. “On Monday afternoon, the mother Sonali (27) returned home from work and found Beauty sitting lifeless with her head inside a bucket full of water. Sonali rushed her to the Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar with the help of some neighbours, where she was declared dead before admission,” officers said. Late on Monday night, post mortem examination revealed that she had been strangled to death, after which the Tilak Nagar police were informed and a case of murder was registered against unknown persons.
“We visited the house and found that a lot of things were misplaced, as if someone had gone through the contents of the house. It was suggestive of an attempt at stealing and we suspected that the murder was a theft gone wrong. We then started making inquiries in the area, questioning neighbours and others who were frequent visitors to the house,” said an officer with the Tilak Nagar police.
As part of these inquiries, the police picked up Hazara (30) on Tuesday morning, who stays in the same locality with his family. The police said that Hazara seemed frightened during their inquiries, which aroused their suspicion and on being questioned intensively, he broke down and confessed to have killed Beauty.
“Hazara entered the house when Beauty and her brother were out playing and began looking for money to steal, when Beauty returned home. As she knew Hazara well, he was afraid that she would tell her parents about his attempted theft. Hence, he strangled her and then arranged her body with its head inside a bucket filled with water. He has said during interrogation that he wanted to make it look like she was playing in water and choked to death in the process,” said Police Inspector T S Surulkar, Tilak Nagar police station.
Hazara was placed under arrest following his confession and will be produced in court on Wednesday, the police said.
