Woman beheaded by mentally unstable mother in Mumbai

In a macabre incident, a Virar resident, Ratna Nadar, 50, brutally murdered her own 26-year-old daughter, cut the body into pieces in the bathroom and tried to burn it. Virar police, who have arrested the woman, say she is mentally ill.

The additional court has asked Virar police to conduct medical tests on Ratna Nadar in Thane civil hospital and submit its report on Saturday. In the remand application, the police stated that Ratna had killed her daughter. However, the court has asked the police to submit her medical examination report. The court will decide whether she should be sent to police or judicial custody only after looking at the civil hospital report about her mental condition. “Ratna would get repeated bouts of temper.

Her daughter, Amalameri, used to take care of her while her husband, Selvaraj, was away at work,” senior police inspector YR Bhagwan told DNA. Selvaraj lodged an FIR near midnight on Friday in which he mentioned that his wife not only killed their daughter but also chopped off her head, hands and legs.

“He came to know about the incident when he returned from work Friday night,” Bhagwan said. “Ratna has been produced in the court and has been remanded to magisterial custody where she is undergoing medical and psychiatric examination,” he added.

Shock and outrage gripped Manvelapada in Virar East as word spread about the gory killing. The Nadars have been staying in a 250 sq feet flat on the first floor of Vajreshwari Apartments in Manvelpada for the past six months. They have three sons, Michael, Saviour, and Anthony, and a daughter, Amalameri. While Selvaraj is a daily wage labourer, two of his sons, Anthony and Saviour, are studying in Bengaluru, while Michel is studying in Hyderabad. An NGO has sponsored their education. Amalameri was also studying but quit to look after her mother after she took ill two years ago.

In fact, the family shifted from Malad only six months ago and was not known to be  friendly with neighbours. On Friday, when Selvaraj returned home, he found blood everywhere after Ratna had attacked her daughter with wooden sticks and killed her. Looking at the way the blood had dried, the police have surmised that Amalameri was killed in the afternoon.

“Since nobody comes or goes to the house, which is locked from within, the incident was only discovered after Selvaraj came back,” said police.

Ratna then took the body into the bathroom and cut off the hands and head. “She stuffed the limbs and head into a plastic bag and attempted to burn the body,” said police. A shocked Selvaraj raised an alarm, and his neighbours alerted the police.

Balu Agawane, 38, the Nadars’ immediate neighbour, says the family has always been “strange.” He told DNA, “None of them were friendly. We would see Ratna murmuring alone sometimes. Often we heard loud arguments from their room. We knew Ratna had some mental disorder but never thought that she will take such an extreme step.”

He further recounted how on Friday afternoon too, loud arguments could be heard from the Nadars’ flat. “We thought it was routine and did not pay attention. Only when Selvaraj returned, late in the night, did we find out what had happened,” he said and added, “Ratna had even tried to cut Amalameri’s ears. When Selvaraj asked Ratna about the incident, she first said someone entered the house and killed their daughter.”

Despite his grief, the broken father was seen pleading with the police to show some sympathy for Ratna, given her condition. “My daughter had the option to choose between caring for her mother or carrying on with her studies. But her mother, for whom she sacrificed her education, ended her life like this,” he lamented.