Mother kills ailing 6-year-old son

A woman strangled her ailing six-year-old son to death on Monday morning near Chembur Camp. The woman, a widow who had lost both her daughters to the same ailment from which her son was suffering, told the police that she didn’t have money to spend on his medical expenses.

According to the police, the woman, Savitri Dornali, and her deceased son Devraj had been staying at her friend’s place at the camp area for the past few weeks.

Police officials said, “She called the friend with whom she was staying and told her that she had fed her son lunch and he went to sleep but was not waking up. The friend came home and tried to wake up Devraj, but when he didn’t respond at all, she suggested that Savitri take him to the hospital. Devraj was later rushed to Shatabdi Hospital but was declared dead by doctors.”

The RCF police registered a murder case after his post-mortem report showed that the death was caused by strangulation and was not natural.

“During investigation the case we found that the room where Savitri and Devraj were sleeping was locked from the inside. There was circumstantial evidence that pointed in the direction of the mother’s involvement because no one else was there. We then detained Savitri and grilled her for almost five hours after which she confessed that she used her dupatta to kill Devraj while he was sleeping,” said Shahaji Umap, zonal deputy commissioner of police.

Savitri, whose husband passed away in 2012, told officials that her son was suffering from convulsions, which aggravated after the monsoons began and she needed to earn more money for his medication.

“She earns Rs 4,000 as a domestic help and she could not afford the additional expense of Rs 2,000 to treat her son, which is why she killed him. Also, she knew that if she could not manage to earn more money, he would die the same way as her two daughters (who died two years ago), which is why she decided to kill him,” Mr Umap said.