A WEEK after she was found dead in an apartment in Andheri’s upmarket Lokhandwala Complex area, the Oshiwara police on Thursday said the 10-year-old domestic help was smothered to death by Roma Bhatia, her employer’s daughter, after she was caught using Bhatia’s mother’s cosmetics.
The police also clarified that the domestic help had not been raped and that Bhatia had inflicted the injuries—she allegedly assaulted her private parts with an aluminium rod and later smothered her—to make the young girl confess to her ‘crime’.
While Bhatia, who was arrested on Tuesday, has now been booked for criminal conspiracy and murder, her brother Rajendra Gajaria—the marine engineer was the main suspect initially—father Vinod and mother Madhu have been booked for abetment and destruction of evidence.
The Gajarias, who were arrested on June 23, had claimed the girl committed suicide by hanging herself when they weren’t home.
Confirming that Bhatia was the prime accused, Additional Commissioner of Police (Western Region) Bipin Bihari clarified that the police suspected the girl had been sodomised or raped because of the nature of her injuries.
‘‘But an examination of the injuries and the scene of the crime confirmed they were inflicted by an artificial object. We conducted further investigations, which revealed it was Bhatia who killed her,’’ he said.
According to the police, last Thursday, after the Gajarias left for Chembur at about 3 pm, Bhatia—she lives two floors above the Gajarias—dropped in and saw the victim using some cosmetics.
When the girl started screaming after Bhatia allegedly stripped and assaulted her, the police said that Bhatia smothered her, leading to her death, then left the flat, locked the door and returned to her apartment.
According to the police, past midnight, when the Gajarias returned, Bhatia told Madhu about the incident, following which the Gajarias tried to pass the girl’s death off as a suicide and hanged her body.
After the post-mortem revealed that she had been killed between 3.30 pm and 6 pm and the police learnt that it was Bhatia who had last been with the victim, they arrested her.
According to the police, injuries on the girl’s body had led them to discard the suicide theory and Bhatia’s arrest on Tuesday and subsequent questioning only confirmed their suspicions.