A nine-year-old girl died on the spot after being thrown down twice allegedly by her mother from the terrace of a three-storey residential building in which they were living at Jaraganahalli in J.P. Nagar on Sunday.

Shocked residents, who saw the girl bleeding, barged into the house, pulled the mother out, thrashed her and tied her up to an electric pole before alerting the police.

Meanwhile, a few residents rushed the girl, Ashika Sarkar aka Shreya, to a nearby hospital where the doctor declared her as brought dead.

According to the police, Ashika was living with her mother, Swati Sarkar, 30, a native of West Bengal, for the past one year in the rented accommodation. Inquiries revealed that Swati, formerly a teacher in a private school, had separated from her husband, Kanchan Sarkar, a senior business analyst with a leading IT firm.

The police said the incident took place around 3.30 p.m. The girl died after she was thrown down to the ground for the second time by her mother, the police said.

“Residents noticed that Swati was in a hurry to flee from the scene after the incident and caught her. They tied her to a pole to prevent her from running away. The public informed us about the incident and we managed to take the woman into our custody for interrogation,” a police officer said.

One of the residents said Swati was shouting frantically at them and said, “Nobody had the right to ask her about the incident as she could do whatever she wanted with her daughter.”

Preliminary investigation revealed that Swati and her husband came to Bengaluru nine years ago and were staying on the third floor of the same building since then. They met in West Bengal and later came to Bengaluru and got married against their parents’ consent, according to the police.

Misunderstandings cropped up a year ago following which Kanchan started to live separately near his office in Indiranagar and used to visit his wife once a month to give her money, the police said.

Kanchan later told the police that Swati used to quarrel frequently with him and it forced him to live separately. “She used to lose control whenever they fought and also used to harass Ashika,” a police quoted Kanchan as saying.

The police said Swati was first seen by neighbours taking her daughter to the terrace and then hurriedly coming down. They then noticed that she took the girl from the ground floor back to the terrace. Noticing injuries on the child, when neighbours asked Swati what happened, she asked them to “mind their own business” and rushed back to the terrace, from where she threw the child down again, the police said.

The owner of the house where the mother and the child were living, said Swati was composed and used to take good care of her daughter.

The Puttenahalli police have taken Swati into custody.