Kochi: The police probing the murder of a three-year-old girl by her mother and sexual abuse by her paternal uncle are yet to find out any link between the two crimes, sources in the investigation team have said. The investigators have almost come to the conclusion that the accused woman killed the child, unaware of the sexual abuse the girl was facing from a close relative.

The woman, police sources said, killed the child to avenge the ill-treatment and neglect she was facing from her husband and his family. She told the police that even her children did not love her as they were brainwashed by her husband’s family against her. She felt she was always being isolated by her husband’s family. “The woman even feared that her husband would leave her and marry someone else. She thought of teaching the husband’s family by eliminating the kid and thus taking away their happiness,” a police officer told Onmanorama.

The investigation team has ruled out the need for a psychiatric analysis of the woman as they are convinced that she committed the crime in her right mind. “She has clearly stated her motive and recollected the turn of the events. The child was first taken to the banks of the Aluva river with the intention to push her into the water. As the circumstances there were not favourable, she took the girl to the Moozhikulam bridge, a place she knows well,” the police said.

The girl was allegedly thrown into the Chalakudy river from the bridge before the woman went to her home, a few kilometres away. The investigators are of the view that the woman took the girl from her husband’s house to her place with the intention to kill her midway. There was no sudden provocation. 

The woman was taken to the crime spot on Friday as part of evidence gathering. The police were on Thursday granted her custody for five days. The murder case has been registered at the Chengamanad police station, while the sexual abuse case was transferred to the Puthencruz station. The Puthencruz police on Thursday recorded the arrest of the child’s uncle under POCSO. The sexual abuse was revealed in the postmortem examination. The accused man has been remanded.