Three held for murder of woman, her toddler daughter

Palghar, Sep 5 (PTI) Days after the bodies of a woman and her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter were found in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, police have arrested three persons on the charge of killing the mother-daughter duo, an official said.

The bodies of the woman, Sushmita Pravin Dawre, 22, and her daughter were found in a stream in Savre village on September 2.

The woman was strangled to death and her body tied to two stone-filled plastic gunny bags and dumped in the stream, Palghar district superintendent of police Balasaheb Patil told reporters here.

Her toddler daughter was also found dead nearby, he said.

Police have Sandeep Ramji Dawre (35), Suman alias Saku Sadhu Karbat (48) and Hari Rama Gowari (32). They are charged under section 103 (1) (murder) and section 238 (destruction of evidence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), he said.

After the recovery of the victims’ bodies, the police launched a probe. Based on intelligence inputs, the investigators found that the victim was the fifth wife of Dawre’s brother. Recently, differences had cropped up between the victim and other members of her family over a property. Others were reportedly forcing her to leave the house, he said.

In order to eliminate Sushmita, Dawre and Karbat hatched a plan. They strangled her to death and, with the help of Gowari, disposed of her body in the stream after tying it with stone-filled gunny bags. They also murdered her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter in the same manner, the official said, adding further investigations are underway.