Bengaluru: Police Suspends 3 Officials for Negligence in 6-Year-Old Girl's Death Probe
The Bengaluru police have suspended three officials from the Kadugodi police station for apathy and negligence in the investigation into the death of six-year-old P Vennela, who died under mysterious circumstances on March 24. The suspended officials include inspector Rangaswamy, sub-inspector Ningaraju, and constable Halesh. The action comes days after the arrest of the girl's mother, P Priyanka, an advocate, and her live-in partner Mohan GM, who confessed to fatally elbowing the child in the stomach over spilled ice cream in their MUV.
Initially, the mother had told police that Vennela died of suffocation after sleeping inside the parked vehicle with windows shut tight. However, the autopsy report suggested internal injuries on the stomach and asphyxiation as the cause of death. The police team missed several clear red flags, and the probe hit a slow lane for weeks until a fortuitous intervention by a Lokayukta IGP led to a re-examination of the autopsy report and a widening of the investigation scope.
Bengaluru City police commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh admitted that the investigation had lapses caused by "wrong intentions." An assistant commissioner of police from a different division will re-conduct the investigation, and the suspended officials will face a departmental inquiry.
Deputy commissioner of police, Whitefield, Saidulu Adavat, explained that the police initially believed the mother's version since she was at the scene. Although the autopsy indicated internal injuries and asphyxiation, the mother claimed the child had fallen the previous day. The police subjected the suspects to deep interrogation, which led Mohan to seek anticipatory bail. On May 27, the Forensic Sciences Laboratory confirmed that death was caused by internal injuries and asphyxiation. The police then contacted the child's father, B Praveen, to register a murder case and successfully got Mohan's anticipatory bail cancelled.
The case gained further momentum when Praveen shared the autopsy report with his sister, Poornima Pandey, a child specialist in England. She forwarded it to her MBBS classmate, Dr. Subramanyeswara Rao, now a senior IPS officer and inspector-general of police, Lokayukta. Dr. Rao stated that there was enough material to register a murder case from the beginning. He criticized the police investigation, noting that the autopsy report clearly indicated death by asphyxia, obstruction to the airways, and blunt injury to the abdomen, yet the suspects were allowed to roam free for nearly two months, potentially destroying evidence and securing anticipatory bail.
