Murder case registered in 3-month-old girl's death

Investigators were verifying if the parents had killed the baby because they did not want a daughter, a police officer said, adding "The couple had left for Kutch a few days ago after taking our permission. Now we summon them to appear before us."

Ahuti Joshi, who was admitted to central Mumbai's civil- run KEM hospital with a skull fracture last week by her parents, died on Sunday night during treatment, police said.

The paediatric department found that she had multiple skull fractures and also suffered from internal bleeding, police said.

When the baby's parents failed to give a satisfactory explanation for her injuries, the doctors notified police who took a note of the incident.

However, on Sunday after the girl died of injuries, police registered it as an accidental death.

The preliminary findings of the postmortem confirmed that Aahuti had injuries on both sides of the skull, which were unlikely to be caused by an accidental fall.

"We have now registered a murder case with prime suspects being her parents Kalpesh and Dharmishtha Joshi. We are also probing if the murderous act was done by a woman who used to carry out massage on the girl daily. We do not want to jump into the conclusion before a thorough probe, though we have short-listed suspects," said Borivali police station senior inspector Bhagwan Chate.

The doctors who treated the girl provided circumstantial evidence to police yesterday, backed by sound medical analyses, to show that Ahuti's death was the result of "wilful battering".