Ghaziabad: A sessions court has rejected the bail application of a woman accused of killing her three-year-old stepdaughter. It found the incident serious and the evidence sufficient to establish her guilt. According to the case diary, the toddler was allegedly strangled to death by the woman, who was herself the mother of a two-month-old baby at the time of the incident.An FIR was registered at the Wave City police station based on a complaint filed by the child’s uncle, Amit Kumar, on May 18. He told the cops that his younger brother Nitesh and his wife Jyoti had been living with three kids — four-year-old Darsh, three-year-old Vanshika and two-month-old Ananya — at a flat. Darsh and Vanshika were born out of Nitesh’s first marriage. When his first wife Vinesh was pregnant with their third child, he abandoned her for Jyoti. Vinesh was sent back to her parents’ house where the child was born.About a year ago, Jyoti and Nitesh started living together and Ananya was born.When Nitesh returned home from work around 8 pm on May 16, he found Vanshika unconscious on the floor while Jyoti played with their baby next to her. When he questioned Jyoti, she claimed Vanshika had fallen off the bed and lost consciousness. Nitesh then called Amit, and the two brought Vanshika to a nearby hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival.Later, the two called the police. When cops initially questioned Jyoti, they found irregularities in her statement. The autopsy report later revealed that Vanshika was smothered to death on the afternoon of May 16. The report also showed she sustained several injuries just before her death.Investigation revealed Jyoti disliked her stepdaughter. She had become enraged at the toddler for throwing tantrums. She then beat and smothered Vanshika, then lay down next to her body.Police registered a case under BNS section 103 (1) for culpable homicide amounting to murder.Jyoti’s counsel said she was innocent and had been falsely implicated. “There is no other evidence on file except her confession. In no circumstances is it possible for the incident to actually take place in the manner depicted by the prosecution,” he said. Moreover, the FIR was filed based on legal advice, and Jyoti has been kept in jail along with her infant daughter.District govt counsel Rajesh Chandra Sharma opposed the bail application and stated that the applicant had murdered the child, as she was present in the house at the time of the incident and Vanshika died under her watch. “A chargesheet has been submitted to the court,” he said. “The crime is of a serious nature and deserves to be tried.”“The post-mortem report shows a total of 12 injuries on the child’s body and the cause of death is asphyxia due to ante-mortem smothering. The doctor also stated that the deceased died from strangulation. Considering all the above facts, circumstances and the gravity of the crime, there is no sufficient basis for the applicant to be released on bail,” sessions judge Vinod Singh Rawat said and rejected Jyoti’s bail plea.
