Four days after 18-month-old Ariba Khan died after falling from the sixth floor of a building in Goregaon East, the police on Monday booked a 10-year-old girl residing in the same building for murder , as CCTV footage indicated that she had “deliberately pushed” the toddler into the duct beside the elevator, resulting in her death.
When her mother was unable to find her, she asked her son and Ariba’s elder brother to look for her. The police initially registered an accidental death report in the case. On Tuesday, the 10-year-old girl was produced before the Juvenile Justice Board, which handed her custody back to her parents in view of her age, until further orders. Also Read I Shooters planned to kill Tiger Shroff in Mumbai, motive unclear, say police According to the police, the incident took place around 9.30pm last Wednesday, when Ariba was playing with a cat outside their flat on the sixth floor of building no. 1 in Anjuman Society, Goregaon East. But when they checked CCTV footage from the building’s lobby on the sixth floor, they saw the 10-year-old girl gesturing to Ariba, calling her towards the elevator. Based on the footage, police suspected that the 10-year-old girl had pushed Ariba over the retaining wall around the duct beside the elevator. On Monday, they booked the girl under section 103 (1) (murder) of the Bharartiya Nyaya Sanhita, based on a formal complaint by Ariba’s mother and the CCTV footage.
Section 21 of the BNS grants “limited immunity” to children aged 7-12 years, saying, “Nothing is an offence which is done by a child above seven years of age and under twelve, who has not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of his “conduct”.
The boy peeped through the railing and saw his sister lying on the ground floor, bleeding. He ran down and raised a cry for help, following which building residents informed the family and rushed the injured Ariba to hospital, where she was declared brought dead.
