Mumbai: Frustrated with caring for her teenage daughter, who had been intellectually disabled by a brain injury as an infant, a woman allegedly killed her by strangulation in the family’s tiny one-room residence in Mumbai’s Andheri area last week, police said.
The mother, Shraddha Pattyane, was later arrested for murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
“We received a call on Wednesday afternoon from the main control room informing that a 19-year-old girl had died by suicide. When we rushed to the spot, we saw the girl lying on the carpet in the hall with her parents beside her,” one of the investigating police officers said to ThePrint.
‘She was very frustrated’
When the police rushed to the spot, the mother, who is in her early 40s, informed the police that their eldest daughter, Vaishnavi, had died by suicide. When the body was taken to Cooper Hospital, the autopsy report revealed that ligature marks on the girl’s neck were not consistent with suicide by hanging.
Doctors informed the police that it was not possible for a “mentally-challenged” person to take such an extreme step.
“That’s when we started our investigation and questioned the mother at length. She finally broke down and confessed to the crime. She said she was very frustrated with her daughter. How many more years would she take care of her was her thought,” the police officer said.
Police said there was no prior record of the mother being violent towards the daughter but taking care of her was becoming increasingly difficult with the family straining under financial woes.
Shraddha Pattyane lived with her husband, Suresh, and two other daughters – one 17-year-old and the other a 2-year-old – in a 225 sq ft room at the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) building in Andheri’s Sahar Road area. Police said the father had lost his job in 2015 and managed to find a new one only last month, which would pay Rs 10,000 per month.
There is no history that the mother was violent with Vaisnavi before. Since it was getting unbearable for Shraddha to take care of her, including her personal hygiene, she got frustrated, the police officer said.
“Their financial condition was weak. The husband did not have a job and even she had to constantly take care of her daughter. Plus, they also have two younger daughters. All this started taking a toll on her and she became increasingly frustrated,” the officer said.
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‘Caring mother but had anger issues’
Neighbours claimed Shraddha was a “very caring mother” but noticed that she had become “quite frustrated and hyper” in the last few months.
“This is very, very shocking to us as to why Shraddha did what she did. She is a very caring mother and used to solely take care of her daughter,” said a neighbour.
Neighbours and building members spoke about how Shraddha was protective of Vaishanvi and would get angry towards anyone, including her younger ones if they said anything against her eldest daughter.
Talking about the victim’s disability, a neighbour, Bhavna Mayavanshi, said that Vaishnavi was only 8 or 9 months old when she had fallen down and got a fit. “That’s when it affected her brain and she got mentally challenged. And since then Shraddha has been taking care of her”.
“Shraddha had to do everything for Vaishnavi. For the last three years, Vaishnavi has been getting her periods and the mother had to take care of that as well. But Vaishnavi would not understand anything and would create a mess in the house,” she added.
Neighbours also said that the teenager suffered from asthma and breathing problems and needed regular medical check-ups.
“Since then there was a financial crunch at Pattyane’s household, they would live on loans from friends and family. During the lockdown, Shraddha tried selling breakfast items for a couple of months but because of Vaishnavi, it became impossible. So she left doing that,” said another neighbour.
However, they noticed the mother “did have some anger issues”. They claimed she would get angry and frustrated but didn’t think Shraddha “would do something so extreme after taking so much care of Vaishnavi”.
(Edited by Monami Gogoi)
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