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Father murders 6-year-old daughter who couldn’t recognise numeral 13.
The young girl died after her father allegedly forced an onion down her throat for failing to recognise the number ‘13’. As the days pass newer stories like an unwanted girl child and female foeticide, father’s mental illness are coming to the fore.
In the potholed lanes leading to Balapur village, about 10 km from Ahmednagar in Maharashtra there is a four-room, single-storey zila Parishad School from which emanate the sounds of children who are repeating concepts loudly after their teacher.
In the droning voices you will easily miss the deathly silence of the house near the school where 6-year-old Bharti Kute choked to death on July 9. The young girl died after her father allegedly forced an onion down her throat for failing to recognise the number ‘13’. Her body was exhumed and post mortem conducted after her mother filed a police complaint. The post mortem revealed the onion in her throat.
As the days pass the stories get hazier and hazier as newer versions do the rounds including that of an unwanted girl child and female foeticide, of a father suffering from mental illness, of a mother since turned out by her in-laws, and of parents desperately wanting their daughter to study.
The school teacher reveals that Bharti had attended school only for 23 days. “We don’t have a pre-primary school here and kids directly come into Standard I. I don’t know if Bharti attended balwadi (pre-school), but she did seem intelligent. In our school, that is how we have to start — by making them sit in class first. Expecting them to read alphabets or numerals is ridiculous,” she says.
Bharti shared that house with her grandmother Purnabai, father Raju, uncle Sachin, mother Anusaya and younger brother Shivaay. While father Raju is now cooling his heels in jail, Anusaya, who lodged a police complaint, along with Shivaay no longer live here.
Purnabai believes Bharti herself stuffed the onion in her mouth. “I saw Bharti running out of the room holding her hand over her mouth. Her father, who was hitting her on the back, said an onion was stuck in her throat. I ran to call my younger son, who had gone to a local shop to buy pencils for Bharti,” she says.
While some villagers have claimed Raju was suffering from a mental illness, Purnabai clears the air saying that he suffered from epilepsy. “He wasn’t crazy. This story of Raju choking Bharti was made up by my daughter-in-law.”
After Bharti fell unconscious, her uncle Sachin rushed her to Kamalnayan Bajaj Hospital at a distance of 5 km from the village. The hospital declared the girl dead on arrival and asked them to take the body to the government hospital. Sachin admits that since they didn’t want a post mortem, they never went to the government hospital.
Police on their part are investigating why the private hospital didn’t inform them considering it was a medico-legal case.
Like Purnabai, Sachin too is accusing Anusaya of cooking up the story and lying. “Maybe she stuffed the onion,” Sachin says.
Police say there is no doubt Raju forced the onion into Bharti, killing her. “He has admitted to his guilt, saying it was over her studies that he got angry,” says Inspector Chatrabhuj Kakade, at Chikhalthana police station.
Anusaya now resides in a small house in Satala village, with Shivaay. While her in-laws claim she left on her own, she says Purnabai threw her out.
Anusaya stands by her version of the incident which she narrated to the police: that Raju punished Bharti for stumbling on her counting. There was more, she adds. “Raju never wanted a girl child. He tried to kill her earlier as well by throwing her into a septic tank when she was 6-7 months old. Once, he left her alone at a lake while I was at work, but luckily, someone found her and brought her home. He used to beat us up and call us names and I had even complained to the women’s grievance redressal cell of police.”
Inspector Kakade says they have not heard of this foeticide angle.