‘Pushed’ by a drunken cook, a three-year-old girl, Kushi, died after falling into a vessel containing hot water near Sai Baba temple at Mallapur of Pahadisharieff on Monday.
Kushi is daughter of temple priest Indramani Dubey.
Locals and the victim’s family members on Tuesday demonstrated at the temple accusing the cook, Subrahmanyam, who was engaged by the temple committee to prepare food to feed the poor on the eve of Sri Rama Navami festival, of killing the girl.
The police arrested the cook after registering a case against him under section 304-A (rash and negligent act leading to death) of the Indian Penal Code.
While loitering around the temple premises, the child went to the corner where Subrahmanyam was preparing food. “We’re told that the cook was heavily drunk,” Pahadisharieff Inspector Mutyam Reddy said. On seeing the cook in an inebriated condition, the priest reportedly took him to task and asked him to leave the place.
Hurrying away from the place, the cook skid on the ground. In the process, while falling on the ground, he allegedly pushed the girl into a vessel containing hot water.
Locals rushed the girl to a private hospital where she succumbed to her burns while undergoing treatment