Kamal Ghorui
Biharsharif: What began as a joyous gathering ahead of a wedding in Nalanda district turned into a scene of grief after a one-year-old boy was allegedly killed by his maternal aunt in Chulihari village under Asthawan police station area late Thursday night.The accused, identified as Sumantri Devi, has been arrested and has confessed to the crime during police interrogation.The victim, Karu Kumar, son of Raju Paswan of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, had come to his maternal grandparents’ house with his mother, Aarti Devi, to attend the wedding of her brother, Dilkhush Paswan, scheduled on April 21. The family had been preparing for the celebrations when the incident took place.According to police and family members, tension had been brewing in the house since earlier in the day after Sumantri allegedly misplaced her mobile phone and suspected Aarti of stealing it. The suspicion led to a heated argument between the two.Later in the night, the child, who had been sleeping in a room, suddenly went missing. With the house locked from inside, family members grew suspicious and began searching for him in and around the premises. They found the boy’s body floating in a nearby pond.Asthawan SHO Uttam Kumar said the aunt came under suspicion during the initial inquiry. “During questioning, she confessed to strangling the child and throwing the body into the pond in an attempt to conceal the crime,” he said.Police have sent the body to a govt hospital for the postmortem and are investigating the case from all angles.
