HYDERABAD: Police finally found out on Saturday evening that the murderer of seven-year-old Armeesh was none other than her own mother who confessed before police to killing her daughter in her house in Latifabad Unit-10 on Thursday.

CIA police interrogated the victim’s mother Shagufta after examining another video footage from the same closed-circuit television camera installed in the street, showing a woman without a burqa visiting the street.

The earlier footage had a woman in burqa walking down the street with a plastic bag containing the girl’s body and placing it beside a wall.

Police showed the new footage to the victim’s father Aftab Arain and asked him to identify the woman. “After seeing it he broke down and told us she is none other than his wife,” said DSP CIA centre Aslam Langah.

He said that when police confronted Shagufta with the footage “she confessed it right away”.

She told police that she had left the body in the street while wearing burqa and took back the bag for fear her husband could easily identify it. She came back again without a burqa to see if the body was still there, said the DSP.

“Shagufta said that Aftab wanted more babies but she feared if she had more children she might develop ovarian cancer. The issue led to frequent bickering and finally her husband threatened to divorce her and keep Armeesh with him,” said the official.

According to Mr Langah, Shagufta killed Armeesh at her house on Thursday by putting pillow on her face. “Shagufta said she took the step in extreme desperation as it was useless to live after being divorced. She decided to kill her daughter and commit suicide too,” he said quoting the woman.

He said that she claimed attempting suicide after killing her daughter and inflicting injuries on her wrist with a knife or a razor blade. She had marks of fresh injuries when she was arrested, he said.

Police had registered a case on Thursday on the complaint lodged by Aftab Arain, father of the victim, at B-section police station Latifabad under Section 302 against unknown persons.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2018