Woman smothers 8-year-old son to death; arrested

Gurgaon: A woman killed her eight-year-old son by strangling him with a sari at their house on Monday in Sirhaul. After committing the murder, the woman called her husband— a labourer — informing him that their son had suddenly fallen unconscious at home. The boy was rushed to a private hospital in Sector 14, where he was declared dead on arrival. Based on the complaint of the boy’s father, the police registered a murder case. The boy’s mother has been taken into custody. The motive behind the murder is yet to be ascertained.During a preliminary probe, police found the boy’s mother committed the murder. Police suspect she did it to hide her affair with a man.“When Karthik reached home on Monday after school, he saw a man hastily leaving the house. Poonam panicked, thinking that Karthik would tell his father about her affair. She strangled her son with a sari. We are trying to locate the man to verify his role in the crime,” said a police official involved in the probe.Karthik was the son of Arvind Kumar (30) and Poonam Devi (28), who belong to Malikpur in Lakhimpur Kheri of Uttar Pradesh. Arvind is a daily wage worker at a private company in Sector 27, and Poonam is a housewife. Karthik was a student of class 1 at a local school in Sarhaul.On May 13, Karthik returned home from school around 2pm. At around 2.30pm, a neighbour called Arvind to inform him that Karthik had fallen ill suddenly. Arvind immediately reached home.“People were gathered around my house when I reached. I heard my wife crying. I entered and saw my son lying unconscious in her lap. There was an injury mark on his neck. I rushed Karthik to Kalyani Hospital in Sector 14, and he was declared dead,” Arvind said.The police reached the hospital after they were informed of the incident around 3.15pm. “The body was sent for postmortem examination, and the reports are awaited. On the complaint of the boy’s father, a case of murder was registered under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. The boy’s mother confessed to having committed the murder and we have arrested her,” Gurgaon police spokesperson Sandeep Kumar said on Tuesday.Inspector Surender Singh from sector 17/18 police station said further investigation is underway. After the postmortem, Karthik’s body was handed over to his father on Tuesday.
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