Bhopal: Toddler poisoned, stuffed in box & left to die

BHOPAL: The charred body of three-and-a-half-year-old boy, missing since Sunday, was found wrapped in a blanket in an abandoned house just 10 meters from his home in Bhopal's Kolar area on Tuesday. For nearly two days, his family and police desperately looked for him while little Varun Meena lay poisoned and suffocated to death inside a wheat container in a neighbour's house.
The suspects - a middle-aged woman and her 16-year-old son - were arrested within hours of the body being found. Police say it was a murder for revenge - the accused believed Varun's family had engineered a theft in their house a month ago. A puja coconut, a box of sweets and white cloth were found on the crime scene, leading locals to suspect a tantric sacrifice, but police denied this.
Coming just over a month after an eight-year-old girl was raped and murdered in Bhopal and in the backdrop of the kidnap-murder of the Chitrakoot twins, this abduction and murder of a toddler triggered outrage across the state.
DGP V K Singh personally inspected the crime scene, and the investigation was led by DIG Irshad Wali. Chief minister Kamal Nath tweeted: "Those accused of killing Varun have been arrested. They will be chargesheeted quickly and the trial will be held in a fast-track court. The government will do everything needed to give them the strictest punishment. The family will get justice."
The woman, in her horrific confession, has told police that she fed the toddler food laced with ant poison when he went to her house to play on Sunday evening. When Varun fell unconscious, she put him in a steel container. As news of his abduction spread and police swarmed all over the village, she stuffed the unconscious boy in another steel container, poured it full of wheat grains and closed the lid. Police say Varun was alive till then and suffocated to death in the wheat box. Early Tuesday morning, afraid that police would go door-to-door, she burnt his body in a nearby house that was abandoned for over a year.
Police say she had planned out the disposal of the body to the last detail. She wrapped the body in a thick blanket before setting fire to the body so that the smoke wouldn't escape and alert neighbours.
Smoke from abandoned house gave cops the clue
She smeared cow dung on the blanket to mask the stench, and poured water on the floor to prevent the fire from spreading, and drawing attention, say police. But little wisps of smoke gave her away.
DIG Irshad Wali said that SDOP Misrod Anil Tripathi and SHO Kolar Anil Bajpai were going door-to-door when they caught a whiff of smoke from the abandoned house around 2pm and decided to investigate. In the Chitrakoot kidnapping, too, the gang had held the twins hostage in an abandoned house that police missed during their searches. This time, however, cops scaled the boundary wall and broke down the door to find the grisly remains.
IG Yogesh Deshmukh, DIG Wali and other senior officers rushed to the spot with a forensics team. DGP V K Singh too reached Chichli locality and inspected the crime scene.
The DIG said they found clues on the spot that led to an adjacent house. After two more hours of investigation, police detained the 40-year-old woman who lived in that house with her two sons. DIG Wali and ASP zone-1 Akhil Patel interrogated her, and she revealed the horrific tale. When the cops were taking her to the police station, a mob gathered and tried to lynch her, but police rescued her from the melee. The DIG was injured in the arm during this violence.
“She said that on June 16, when she was away attending a wedding, her house was burgled and 500g silver, some gold jewellery and Rs 30,000 in cash were stolen. When she returned home the next day, Varun’s family was partying at their house. She suspected that Varun’s father was behind theft at her house and was taunting her by partying. This led to a major dispute between the two families,” said Wali.
On Sunday evening, when Varun came to her house to play, she was “overcome with the thirst for revenge” and poisoned him, she has told police. When the alarm went out, police were sent on a false trail by some villagers who claimed to have seen a white SUV speeding away. Police spent a lot of time tracking down every white SUV that had passed by.
DIG Wali said that the woman’s younger son, a minor, arrived home at 8.30pm to find everyone looking for the boy. He joined the search, and returned home at 11.30pm — only to see his mother shifting the unconscious Varun to another container and filling it with wheat, say police. “This is why he was made a co-accused. He knew that his mother had poisoned the toddler. Varun was alive then,” said DIG Wali.
“As there was no breakthrough in the SUV theory, a massive search was launched in the houses,” Wali said. Panicked, she moved Varun’s body to the abandoned house around 5-6am on Tuesday, and burnt it, Wali said. DGP Singh met Varun’s family and promised them quick justice.