Thane: In a horrific incident, a 38-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly killing his 3-year-old niece and attempting to burn her body in Maharashtra’s Thane district.

The 3-year-old niece from the Ulhasnagar area went missing on November 18, and her partially burned body was recovered from the bushes near a police station Thursday.

Acting on technical inputs and human intelligence, police arrested the niece’s uncle, who is in his 30s. During interrogations, the accused confessed to the crime but said it was not intentional. He explained that the girl fell and died after he slapped her over an argument.

The accused then set the body on fire to destroy it and threw it in bushes near Mumbai’s Ulhasnagar.

Senior Inspector Anil Jagtap of the Hill Line Police Station stated that an investigation is underway, and the police have sent the body for a postmortem.