Mumbai: Mumbai police are investigating the death of an 18-month-old toddler at a Goregaon housing society on Wednesday night after coming across CCTV footage that shows a 10-year-old girl lifting her and throwing her down the stairwell from the sixth floor.While no FIR has been registered so far, the 10-year-old has been produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). Police said the CWC will make enquiries with her and take the final decision. The girl and her family had moved into the building only a fortnight ago.The toddler lived on the sixth floor of the building with her parents and four brothers. According to a relative, she was playing in the common corridor outside the houses with a stray cat. Later, her mother sent one of her brothers to look for her, but she was nowhere to be found. “After searching for a few minutes, her brother peered down the stairwell and saw someone lying on the ground floor. The clothes matched his sister’s outfit. He then rushed to inform his mother,” said the child’s aunt.In the meantime, other residents picked up the injured toddler and rushed her to a doctor. She had suffered serious head injuries and was pronounced dead.Police were informed and an accidental death record was lodged. While making inquiries, police found it odd that the toddler could have fallen off when the railing on the sixth floor was high. They retrieved CCTV footage which showed that a 10-year-old girl living on the same floor had thrown her down the stairwell from the sixth floor. The 10-year-old then went home and did not inform anyone about the incident, said police.“We are investigating the sequence of events leading up to the death of the toddler, and whether any adult was involved,” said a senior police official.Under the law, children under seven are completely excluded from being prosecuted under criminal law, and children between the ages of 7 and 12 are excluded only if a court decides that they did not understand the consequence of their actions.“An accidental death record was registered regarding the death of an 18-month-old girl at Goregaon East. CCTV footage shows a 10-year-old neighbour lifting the toddler and pushing her down into the duct area. The body has been sent for a postmortem examination to ascertain the cause of death,” said DCP Gajanan Rajmane.
