Man Kills 3-Year-Old to Ward Off ‘Black Magic’ in Colaba

When 43-year-old Colaba resident, Anil Chugani, flung a three-year-old girl off a seventh-floor balcony on 7 September, it was to allegedly ‘save’ himself. This twisted theory was exposed after the Mumbai police found the words ‘Kill the twins to save your life’ written in Chugani’s diary while searching his residence.

Chugani was allegedly also planning to kill three-year-old Shanaya Hathiramani’s twin sister, Shreya, soon after. All because he believed he was cursed and the only way to rid himself of the curse was to kill the twins.

“Anil Chugani was in contact with a woman in Morocco, where he had been living for 15 years. It was this woman who told him that he had to kill twins in order to save his own life. That’s why he started planning this since June.”

Police Official 

A Close ‘Friend’ of the Family

While Chugani usually spent only a month every year in Mumbai, this time, he stayed for six months, allegedly to execute his plan. On 7 September, he asked his childhood friend Prem Lal Hathiramani, the three-year-old girl’s father, to send the children to his residence. Hathiramani sent the twin girls and their six-year-old brother along with their nanny to Chugani’s residence.

Chugani took three-year-old Shanaya to the washroom on the pretext of having her wash her hands after eating while her nanny was preoccupied with the other children. Once inside, he allegedly flung her out of the window and plunged to her death from the seventh storey on a parked car.

“He panicked after this. He locked himself inside the bedroom and called the police,” said the police official.

Chugani has been booked for murder and under the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013. He has been remanded to police custody for five days.

Chugani’s lawyer Sunil Pandey argued that, “The kid fell down on its own. In fact the accused took her to the hospital and also informed the police. But the prosecution has alleged that the accused has thrown the child,” reported NDTV.

The police have contested this claim as they believe it is impossible for the child to have wound up 20 feet away from the building if she had simply fallen out of the window.

Police sources say, Anil Chugani worked as a salesperson at a garment store. There appears to be no business rivalry between Chugani and the girl’s father. The primary motive, at this point, appears to be his twisted belief that killing twins would ‘save his life’.

The Colaba police have recorded statements of the domestic help and the neighbours who live in the same building. Chugani’s wife’s statement is yet to be recorded. Also, there isn’t much information about the woman from Morocco who allegedly ‘suggested’ Chugani kill the twins. 

“We only know what’s written in the diary about her. If needed, in the future, once we have more on this person, we can go through Interpol and try to trace this person,” said the police official.