Police are investigating the death of a 9-year-old girl whose body was found in a bathroom at her New York City home.
Advertisement
Her stepmother, Arjun Samdhi Pardas, who was supposed to have been watching her is a “person of interest”.
The bruised child was discovered Friday by a anxious housemate at their Richmond Hill home about 6 p.m. – the same time stepmom Arjun Samdhi Pardas was supposed to be babysitting her, police sources said.
Relatives told the newspaper that a woman who shares part of Pardas’ house told Ashdeep’s father that Pardas and his daughter had gone into the bathroom together Friday.
A cousin of Mr Kaur’s father, said of the girl in a report in New York Daily News, “There was no water, but she was in the tub”.
Why the stepmother would have chosen to beat her stepdaughter has yet to be presupposed, as investigators continue to “question” Pardas through the course of Saturday.
The woman, whose family members say “didn’t treat the victim right”, barricaded herself inside a South Ozone Park residence prior to being apprehended by officers just after 9 p.m. Friday, according to the NYPD. Neighbors living in the home called police when the child was in the bathroom and not responding for a long time, cops said.
The girl’s identity hasn’t been disclosed by police, but family members told NBC 4 NY that the girl’s name is Ashdeep Kaur and that she moved to the United States from India about a month ago. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Singh rushed home from work when authorities contacted him, and could be heard screaming in the back of an ambulance.
The child had allegedly complained of the stepmom, sometimes, beating her.
The medical examiner has not yet determined a cause of death.
Harmeet Sing, who works with the child’s father, told the Post: ‘He just moved [here] a couple of weeks ago’.
Told the uncle, ‘I see some scratching on her hand’.
Advertisement
The investigation is ongoing.
