Navi Mumbai: Mother kills six-year-old daughter for not speaking Marathi properly

(Representative Image)

Taking the Maharashtra language row to a tragic extreme, a 30-year-old woman in Navi Mumbai allegedly strangled her six-year-old daughter because the child could not speak Marathi properly, NDTV reported.

Police said the woman later told investigators that she was also unhappy about having a daughter instead of a son and was undergoing psychiatric treatment at the time.

The incident took place on Tuesday at the family’s residence in Kalamboli. The woman initially tried to pass off the child’s death as a heart attack. However, a police officer grew suspicious and ordered a special post-mortem examination.

According to officials, the girl’s grandmother had visited the house earlier in the day but left without meeting the child. When the woman’s husband returned home that evening, he found the girl unresponsive and rushed her to a hospital, where the woman claimed the child had suffered a heart attack.

Senior Police Inspector Rajendra Kote of the Kalamboli police station said the post-mortem revealed signs of airway obstruction. Following nearly six hours of questioning, the woman confessed to strangling her daughter. She has been arrested.

Police said the woman, a science graduate, married her IT engineer husband in 2017 and gave birth to a girl two years later. Officials added that the child had speech difficulties from a young age and mostly spoke Hindi instead of Marathi, which frequently angered her mother.

“I don’t want such a child; she doesn’t speak properly,” the woman allegedly told her husband on multiple occasions. Police also said she had long expressed a desire for a son and was under psychiatric care.