Now,maid says employer raped,killed her daughter

Rekha has also given a fresh statement to police saying her employer had an illicit affair with her for the last one year. She added that he used to take “some medicine” before getting intimate with her.

Police inspector Motichand Rathod of Vishrambaug police station said Rekha had initially told them her employer was a good man,but she has changed her statement now. “We are verifying her statements. The process of gathering evidence is on,” he said.

Rekha said the incident took place when she had gone out of the house around 1 pm to fetch a tiffin box.

“When I returned,I asked Kulkarni about my daughter. He said she was playing on the floor above. When I went above,I saw my daughter strangulated with a scarf. She was hanging from the iron staircase,” she said. “I shouted for help. Kulkarni brought my daughter down and tried to give her water. But she was lying lifeless. When I asked him what had happened to my daughter,he confessed to have raped her. He offered me Rs 50,000 to keep quiet and so I gave a wrong statement to the police,” she said.

Police said Kulkarni stays at the two-storeyed house with his bedridden wife and two younger brothers. His two sons reside in the US. Rekha and another domestic maid work at the house. In her earlier statement,Rekha had said when she returned to the house with the tiffin box,she found her daughter dead on the terrace. Rekha called Kulkarni and he took the girl to Poona Hospital,where she was pronounced dead.

Police took her body to Sassoon Hospital for postmortem. The report revealed that the girl was raped and strangulated.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Dnyaneshwar Phadtare said he could not comment but a senior police officer said,“We suspected the involvement of an insider. The location of the house is such that there is little possibility of any outsider coming in and raping the girl without being noticed. We are also probing why Rekha changed her statement.”