Mumbai man flung kid to get ‘baby and prosperity’

MUMBAI: The 43-year-old man who flung his friend’s three-year-old daughter from his seventh-floor flat in Colaba, has told police that a man from Morocco had advised him to “sacrifice” a life to have a baby and gain prosperity.
Anil Vishu Chugani, booked for murder, was remanded in one-week police custody by a holiday court on Sunday. Police told the court the child had fallen as if she had been thrown off. Though there are no grilles, the windows were over three-and-a-half foot high and she was too small to climb them. Also, police claimed to have found diaries at Chugani’s home in which he had allegedly written about killing a child.
If it were accident, girl wouldn’t have fallen so far: Cops
“Even if she would have jumped off or fallen off, she would not have landed so far away on the bonnet of a car parked several metres away from the building,” said an officer from Colaba police station.
Chugani, dressed in blue jeans and checked blue shirt, did not utter a single word in the court until the magistrate asked him if he had any complaint. He replied in the negative. His lawyer Sunil Pandey maintained that the murder allegations were false and that the child had fallen off the balcony of Chugani’s flat at Ashoka Apartment as there were no grills.
On Sunday, the watchman at Ashoka Apartment refused to allow media to enter the premises or speak to anyone. The police said that they have summoned Chugani’s wife and friends to record their statements and know about his mental condition. While Chugani’s family has a cloth shop in Morocco and he would travel there often, he was jobless. He had come back from Morocco in May. The police said that he was married and his wife was pregnant. Sources said that the wife was at her mother’s place when the incident took place.
“During preliminary interrogations, Chugani has told the police that his friend in Morocco had advised him to sacrifice a life and hence, he threw the child. We are trying to ascertain if he is lying and trying to mislead us. It does not look like he is mentally disturbed but we are still probing,” said an official.
According to the police, the deceased girl, Shanaya Hathiramani, was the daughter of Chugani’s friend Rameshlal Hathiramani, who stays in Sangam Bhavan opposite Ashoka Apartment near Radio Club. Hathiramani and Chugani are school friends. On Saturday evening, Chugani went to the Hathiramanis flat and invited Shanaya and her twin Shreya to his flat. The police said the twins and their six-year-old brother went to Chugani’s house, accompanied by their nanny Kakuli Mandal.
The nanny has told the police that Chugani took Shanaya inside a room and locked it. “She kept asking him to open the door but he didn’t. Soon, she heard a commotion outside.” Panicked, the nanny took the other two children out, said a police source. The police said that some residents had heard a thud and rushed outside to find Shanaya in a pool of blood. They immediately alerted the police and rushed the girl to St George’s hospital, where doctors declared her dead.
In Video:3-year-old girl thrown from 7th floor in Mumbai by father's friend, dies