Hyd woman who drowned her toddler niece sentenced to life imprisonment

A 24-year-old woman who confessed to killing her one-and-half-year-old niece in 2015 has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the LB Nagar court in Hyderabad on Friday.

The accused, T Rajya Lakshmi, was a housewife who had held a grudge against her sister-in-law, K Renuka, the mother of one-and-half-year-old Jyothisha. On June 30, 2015, when Renuka had gone to take a bath, Lakshmi took Jyothisha and drowned her in a water drum near their home in the Chandanagar police station limits, according to police.

“At about noon on June 30, 2015, Lakshmi went to Renuka’s house and took away the baby girl. Upon returning from the bathroom, Renuka noticed that her child was missing and then found her in the water drum near Lakshmi’s house,” the police stated in its release.

Suspicious of Lakshmi's involvement in the death of her daughter, Renuka approached the police and filed a case the same day.

Upon investigating, police found that Lakshmi was harassed and neglected by her mother-in-law and Renuka. The trio had started quarrelling frequently after Lakshmi suffered a miscarriage in 2014.

In one such argument, Lakshmi's mother-in-law had reportedly said that her son would remarry since Lakshmi could not conceive a child. According to the police, Lakshmi had been upset ever since that remark and had directed her anger towards her niece, Jyothisha.

Upon questioning, Lakshmi confessed to committing the crime. She was charge-sheeted before the Second Additional district court at LB Nagar, which convicted the accused.