Mentally unstable woman murders daughter,arrested

Senior police inspector Yusuf Bagwan from the Virar police said,“The Nadar family,comprising Selvaraj,wife Ratna and daughter Amla Mary,stayed on the first floor of the Vajreshwari Building in Manvelpada in Virar East. Selvaraj has three sons but they are out of station.

Ratna has been suffering from a mental illness for around three years and has sought treatment at Virar’s Sanjivani Hospital. Amla Mary used to stay at home almost always to take care of her mother.”

Enquiries with the residents of the building have revealed that Ratna had on Friday afternoon suffered a fit of insanity,gone to the balcony and began hurling abuses. Amla had pulled her inside and tried to calm her down.

“Even after Amla had pulled her mother into the house,the neighbours could hear shouting and screaming for some time but they ignored it,” said Bagwan.

Around 9.30 pm,when Selvaraj came home from work,he asked Ratna about Amla but did not receive a coherent reply. He looked for her in the house and found the hacked body in the bathroom.

“Ratna had apparently bludgeoned Amla’s head with a wooden club used for washing clothes and then hacked the body with a knife. We found her head,an arm and the rest of the body in the bathroom. Ratna had also apparently tried to burn the body parts as they were in a charred condition,” said Bagwan. Ratna was arrested by the police after Selvaraj and the other residents of the building approached the police.

“She does not seem to be in a mentally stable condition and talks as if her daughter is still alive. Even when she was produced in court on Saturday,she was speaking random things unrelated to the murder and did not show any signs of regret or guilt.

The court has directed us to take her to the Thane Civil Hospital for a mental checkup and we will take further action after the reports are in,” Bagwan said.