Attack on 4-yr-old caught on CCTV

Accused woman and the girl stay in the same building; cops say she wanted to steal the child’s earring, family cries attempt to murder.

A four-year-old girl from Maharashtra Nagar in Trombay was allegedly confined in their building’s lift and brutally beaten up by a 42-year-old woman staying in the same apartment on Children’s Day, the horrific incident being captured on the CCTV camera installed in the elevator.

The accused, Rizwana Shaikh, has been arrested and booked for robbery and assault by the Trombay police, who claim that she wanted to steal the gold earrings that the child, Janhavi, was wearing. But the girl’s family members alleged that Shaikh wanted to kill her and demanded that she be charged with attempt to murder.

Janhavi, who sustained several injuries, is recovering at home.


The chilling video of the assault, which went on for nearly five minutes, also shows Shaikh murmuring something while sitting on the child and not letting anyone enter the lift. The girl’s mother, who heard her cries, had rushed to her aid, thinking that she was caught in the elevator.

But Shaikh banged the lift’s door and took it to the seventh floor, where she continued the attack on the girl.

Janhavi stays with her mother Sarika and father Dayanand on the fourth floor of Sai Sadan building in Maharashtra Nagar. Shaikh too lives in the same building on the sixth floor, but the two families are not acquainted with each other.


According to the FIR, Janhavi was playing at the basement with her brother, Piyush, around 3 pm on Wednesday when Shaikh called her to the lift. The CCTV video shows her raining blows on Janhavi soon after she entered the lift. Around the same time, Sarika went downstairs to look for Janhavi and heard her cries. She initially thought that her daughter was stuck in the lift. As Sarika yanked opened the lift’s door, Shaikh banged it shut and took the lift to the seventh floor where she started beating the child again after switching off light.

Shaikh is seen mercilessly punching and kicking the child and then plonking herself on her for several minutes. The assault went on for a while till, alerted by Sarika’s cries, some residents rushed to the lift. But Shaikh refused to let go of the child and had to be forcibly dragged out of the lift by two men.

While the police were called, Janhavi, who was bleeding and had sustained several blunt injuries on her neck, face and back, was rushed to a nearby hospital for check-up.

Ashocked Sarika demanded severe punishment for the accused. “Robbery cannot be the motive for the assault on my child. The woman wanted to kill my daughter perhaps because she doesn’t have a child. The CCTV video shows her murmuring something while sitting on her. My daughter was brutally beaten up on Children’s Day. She is traumatised. She is getting startled by the lift’s sound or any other unknown voice,” Sarika said.

A relative of the victim said, “We want the police to add the section of attempt to murder in the FIR as the assault was quite brutal. She could have died.”

Prakash Salvi, senior inspector of Trombay police station, said, “The accused has been booked under Section 394 of IPC (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery). She beat up the child in a bid to steal her earrings.”