Nepali girl’s death in Bengaluru ruled as drowning in drain

Bengaluru: Last year, the father of an eight-year-old girl lodged a police complaint suspecting foul play after his daughter was found dead in a drain near their Bellandur home. The girl had disappeared while returning home after purchasing ice cream.
The girl, the third child of a Nepalese couple employed as housekeeping staff at a local apartment complex, lived with her family in a colony housing other Nepalese migrants. In his complaint, the father stated his daughter had left home around 1pm on May 8, 2024.
Police initiated an investigation, collecting CCTV footage, which showed the girl reaching a shop, purchasing ice cream, and walking back towards her home. However, there were no cameras near their residence, and police lost track of her approximately 300m from the house.
Investigators then examined CCTV footage from surrounding roads and lanes. Finding no trace of her, they concluded she must have gone missing from somewhere near the house. Her body was finally found in a drain on May 11.
Consequently, police registered an unnatural death report . But as her father suspected his daughter might have been murdered after an attempted sexual assault, investigators sent the body for postmortem examination whilst viscera samples were forwarded to the forensic science laboratory to determine the cause of death.
Meanwhile, a Nepalese couple living next door were subjected to investigation based on the father's suspicion. "...Their polygraph reports indicated that the couple had no idea about the girl missing or drowning," an investigating officer said.
The autopsy report, which arrived first, indicated no external or internal injuries. Furthermore, there were no signs of physical or sexual assault. Subsequently, the forensic lab analysis of viscera samples confirmed the absence of poison or any other foreign substance that could have caused the death. Both reports indicated drowning as the cause.
"We didn't close the case immediately. We conducted a diatom test to compare the water found in the body with water from where it was recovered," said Shivakumar Gunare, DCP (Whitefield), adding that the samples matched. "... If she had been strangled or smothered, as her father suspected, water wouldn't have entered her lungs. Based on these findings, we submitted a closure report in court last week."