Navi Mumbai: A 30-year-old woman was arrested by Kalamboli police for smothering her six-year-old daughter because she did not want a girl child as she desired a son. She was also angry as her daughter did not speak properly and only spoke in Hindi.Rajendra Kote, senior inspector of Kalamboli, informed that the accused woman, identified as Supriya Mhamunkar, is a BSc graduate and resides with her husband, Pramod, who is an IT engineer, in Guru Sankalp Society in Sector 1E, Kalamboli. She claimed that her daughter died due to ill health on Dec 23. Hence, prima facie, an accidental death case was registered. However, the post-mortem report from Panvel sub-district hospital revealed that the girl was smothered.The girl’s mother was the prime suspect, as she was undergoing treatment for depression by visiting a psychiatrist since 2024. She was detained for inquiry on Friday, when she confessed that she smothered her daughter by blocking her nose and mouth and applied pressure on her abdomen using her knee. She even claimed that she insisted to her husband that she wanted a son, but he was reluctant to have a second child. Hence, she took the drastic step of killing her minor daughter.SI Kote said, “The husband Pramod told that in May, she revealed to him that when their daughter was one month old in 2019 and they were residing in Pali Raigad, she attempted to smother her but panicked as the infant was motionless and rushed her to a local doctor. However, no complaint was lodged then, as she told the doctor that the infant got choked when she accidentally turned over her while she was fast asleep. She was produced before Panvel court, which has remanded her to police custody till Dec 29.”
