Pune: Monster mom beats 13-year-old to death with a cricket bat – Arrested

Pune (Mid-day): A 13-year-old partially-disabled boy died after his mother allegedly beat him senseless with a cricket bat. The mother claims that she hit her son in self-defence after he allegedly tried to make sexual advances on her.

The police have identified the deceased teenager as Chaitanya Balpande who was living with his mother in Pune. They have also arrested his mother, Rakhi Balpande (36). Rakhi was working as an admin head in a multinational company. She is currently in police custody and a case of murder has been registered against her at the Vishrantwadi police station. The incident came to light in the wee hours of Thursday. Rakhi had carried Chaitanya along with the owner of the house Sumit More in a car at Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital at midnight on Wednesday alleging that he had slipped in the bathroom.

Findings by the police and the doctors suggest a grave incident that led to the teenager’s death. His father has a completely different allegation.
Broken home

Chaitanya’s parents had been living separately for three years after their marriage hit troubled waters. Rakhi and Tarun got married in 2000 and theirs was a love marriage. However, things took a strange turn and Rakhi filed a false case of domestic violence against Tarun and his sister. Their divorce case is still pending in a Pune court. Three years ago, she applied for getting sole custody of their son and did not let Tarun meet Chaitanya. According to Tarun, his son’s insistence on meeting him was what got him killed.

Tarun rushed to Pune with his father from Nagpur, where he currently resides immediately after receiving a call from Rakhi’s sister regarding Chaitanya’s death.

He says, “When I saw my son’s dead body, I could not believe my eyes. The police had filed a case of accidental death but I was waiting for the results of the post-mortem. I knew that she had beaten him because there were a lot of injury marks on his body. I work in a pathology lab and was able to identify the nature of injuries on Chaitanya’s body.”

Upon interacting with the neighbors, the police further found out that Chaitanya was a student of Pune International School. However, upon completing sixth grade, his mother stopped sending him to school and kept him locked up at home. She did not even let him play with the other kids or watch television or play on the computer. Rakhi’s sister said the same thing in her statement to the police and added that Chaitanya had indeed insisted on meeting his father.

Swapna Gore, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Khadki division) who is investigating the case said, “When we interacted with her in the evening she confessed that she had thrashed her son with a bat after he tried to get physically intimate with her on Monday. She had given him painkillers but when she came home from work on Wednesday she noticed that Chaitanya was unconscious and she rushed him to the hospital. We had already detained Rakhi at this point because when we saw the dead body, it had multiple injuries and Chaitanya’s private parts were bleeding.”

A doctor at the Sassoon General Hospital said, “Chaitanya had multiple injuries on his butt and back and his left hand is entirely purple. His kidneys and lungs are damaged as well. The post mortem on his teeth revealed that he was hit with a blunt object. He’d last eaten on Tuesday afternoon and the time of his death was around 10 pm on Wednesday, an hour before he was brought to the hospital.” Popat Supekar, the Inspector in-charge of Vishrantwadi police station said, “Rakhi’s husband did not like her working and was suspicious of her.  She moved to Pune a year and half ago, after she got a job here. She was staying in a rental flat in a posh society. We are investigating the case.” He added, “Rakhi’s mother used to live with them earlier, but was compelled to return to Nagpur by Rakhi as she used to save her grandson from getting beaten by his mother.”