KOLKATA: A 35-year-old homemaker and mother of two was arrested on Monday from her Phoolbagan home for allegedly strangling her two-month-old daughter after wrapping her face with adhesive tape and then dumping the body in a dry manhole on the ground floor of the building on CIT Road, where she lived. Sandhya Maloo then told her family, and later the police, that an unidentified man had kidnapped her baby. The incident — spanning over 10 hours on Sunday — was cracked after the mother admitted to killing her baby in the face of persistent questioning by cops. The infant’s body was found in the manhole late at night.“We have arrested Sandhya Maloo on charges of killing her baby Sarnaya. She claimed she was tired of the baby and killed her. Further investigation is on,” Ajoy Prasad, deputy commissioner (eastern suburban division), said. Sandhya was produced in court and remanded in police custody for four days.Although Sandhya claimed she was “too tired” to take care of the infant, cops are probing if her apathy was caused by a medical condition like post-partum depression or if it was a case of female infanticide or if she had some other motive. She is likely to be sent for a psychiatric evaluation on Tuesday and also questioned in the presence of psychiatrists. Her social media posts are also being scanned.Sandhya told police she had decided to kill her daughter two weeks ago, angry at being unable to “get any sleep or rest”. On the morning of Republic Day, her husband, Sudarshan Maloo, and mother-in-law left for a temple to work out the arrangements for the baby’s naming ceremony. Sandhya ensured that the couple’s nine year old son went along with them. Her father-in-law, Hemant Maloo, had alraady left home on some work and Sandhya sent maid Tumpa Das to the balcony on an errand. Seizing the opportunity, around 12.40 pm, she swaddled little Saranya’s face tightly in adhesive tape and then strangled her. She then took the body down and dumped it in a dry manhole.When Hemant returned, she found Sandhya hysteric and barely conscious. He and the maid found the baby missing and raised an alarm. When the police arrived, Sandhya claimed she was alone in their second-floor flat when an unidentified man knocked on the door asking for the keys to the terrace. When she opened the door, he pushed her and she fell down and passed out.During investigation, the cops found Sandhya’s statements about the intruder inconsistent. “When asked to describe him, she faltered. We went through 12 CCTV cameras in the area and found no unaccounted movement between 12 noon and 1 pm around the house. It was then that we started questioning her and she broke down around late evening,” said an officer.Sandhya, a commerce graduate from Calcutta University, married Sudarshan Maloo, a senior executive with a private firm in Kolkata, in December 2009 and a son was born to them soon. Recently, she was trying to set up her own business. Sudarshan was in a state of shock at the sudden turn of events. “We had gone to the temple to invite priests for our child’s naming ceremony. She was our Lakhsmi. I have nothing to say right now. I don’t know what will happen to my son now,” he said.The Maloo’s neighbours were stunned. “We initially thought the child was kidnapped and it was only when cops kept pouring in at night that we realized that Sandhya was being arrested,” said a neighbour who refused to be named.