Haryana serial child-killing case: Jealousy, suspicion and ritual claims

The first hint that something was horribly wrong came during what should have been a joyous family wedding in Panipat’s Naultha village. On Monday, 2 December, six-year-old Vidhi vanished from the courtyard where children were playing. Minutes later, her relatives found her lifeless body in a storeroom upstairs — face down in a tub of water, legs hanging out, the door bolted from the outside.

What looked at first like a tragic accident unravelled into something far darker. By Wednesday, 4 December, police said they had arrested the child’s aunt, 32-year-old Poonam, and linked her not only to Vidhi’s death but to three more child murders — including that of her own toddler son.

Over two years, police say, Poonam quietly built a trail of drownings across three villages in Sonipat and Panipat, staging each one as an accident and returning to family gatherings without a flicker of fear or remorse.

Panipat superintendent of police Bhupender Singh said investigators now believe Poonam fits the profile of a “high-functioning psychopath” propelled by obsessive jealousy. Each victim — two girls aged six, one nine — was related to her. In 2023, she allegedly drowned her sister-in-law’s nine-year-old daughter in Sonipat’s Bhawar village. Afraid the family might suspect her, police say she then drowned her own three-year-old son Shubham to divert suspicion.

In August this year, she allegedly killed her cousin’s six-year-old daughter Jia in Sewah village. Vidhi’s killing on 2 December, partly captured on CCTV, finally collapsed the façade of accidental tragedy that had so far shielded her.

“She admitted she harboured a hatred for beautiful girls,” SP Singh said, quoting her confession. “Whenever she saw a pretty child, she felt they might grow up to be more beautiful than her.”

Until now, relatives had accepted the earlier deaths as freak drownings. But after Poonam’s arrest, families began connecting patterns that once seemed too far-fetched to voice.

Jia’s uncle Surendra told reporters that all three killings in his side of the family occurred on Ekadashi (day 11 of the moon cycle), leading him to suspect a ritual element. “Three murders happened on Ekadashi and all were done the same way. It points towards some tantrik activity,” he alleged. He says he did not go to police earlier because Poonam would weep theatrically, threaten suicide and insist on her innocence. He now wants the death penalty, insisting she must never “walk out on parole and kill again”.

Police say they are examining the Ekadashi claim but stress that jealousy-driven psychopathy remains the primary established motive. “There is no evidence of child sacrifice,” the SP reiterated.

Investigators say Poonam displayed unnerving calm after each killing — slipping back among relatives, explaining away wet clothes and even offering to join searches for the very children she had drowned. Officers believe her killing spree paused for nearly 18 months because she fell pregnant again.

Sources say she appeared to celebrate internally after the murders, showing no remorse and staging each drowning carefully so it resembled a household accident.

Residents of Sewah, where Poonam was born and educated, say they are stunned. “Her behaviour was always quiet and normal,” a villager told police. “No one imagined this.”

Her mother Sunita Devi expressed disbelief but did not defend her. “If she has done this, she must face the punishment,” she said. “Before marriage she never harmed a child. Whatever happened, happened after marriage. If she had an illness, we would have treated it.”

Police say Poonam’s behaviour suggests extreme jealousy, especially towards young girls, an ability to mimic normal emotional responses, detailed planning and staging of incidents, emotional detachment, even from her own children, and a sense of entitlement and latent aggression.

She is now lodged in Siwah Jail as police inform other jurisdictions and widen the investigation.

What began as one suspicious drowning has become one of Haryana’s most chilling criminal cases in years — a story of concealed rage, family trust betrayed and a woman whose quiet demeanour hid what police now call a psychopathic descent into serial murder.

With PTI inputs