Gavit Sisters, Mother Killed Toddlers For 6 Years, Fooled Cops Until Last ‘Revenge’ Murder

Anjanabai Gavit with her two daughters committed murders for 6 years to shield their petty crimes. And they only killed toddlers.

No age, no era and no time in history was ever spared of crime. And every time one thinks of having seen the worst possible in this world, they are confronted with something graver, gorier and scarier. What happened in Maharashtra in a span of six years from 1990 to 1996 could fall in this category — "rarest of rare", as found by India's courts at all levels. The Bombay High Court, however, later commuted the death sentences of two of the perpetrators to life imprisonment in 2022, due to "dereliction of duty of the state". Had it not been for the court's mercy, the two would have become only the second and third women to be hanged in India.
 
Half-sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit were involved in a series of crimes, and all under their mother Anjanabai Gavit's guidance. The infamous case finally saw only the sisters getting convicted, but Anjanabai had been a big part of it. 

In the early 1990s, a small trick used by Renuka during one of her pickpocketing attempts led to their cruel story. Her son, a toddler then, was in her lap when she was caught red-handed one day. Facing an angry mob, she begged and pleaded for mercy in the name of her minor son. The mob spared her. That day changed the future of the family — Renuka, her husband Kiran Shinde, sister Seema Gavit and their mother Anjana Gavi. Their story also inspired a film that was released in 2019 — Posham Pa.

Kidnapping Toddlers For Petty Crimes, And Then...

According to police records, the family kidnapped 13 children below five years of age between 1990 and 1996, and killed at least nine of them — for which they were charged. Reports say the actual number could be 40 as many kidnapped children were never found. 

"There are two turning points in the tale of Anjanabai Gavit and her two daughters, Seema and Renuka," Suhas Nadgauda, a police inspector with the Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the late 1990s, was quoted as saying in a report in The Indian Express. He was part of a team of officers that investigated the serial kidnappings and murders of children aged between nine months and four years.

According to the police, the mother and her two daughters executed their crime across Pune, Kolhapur, Nashik, Kalyan and Thane between 1990 and 1996.

"The first turning point was when the sisters snatched a purse at Chaturshringi temple in Pune in April 1990. And the second was an accidental encounter in a market in Nashik in October 1996," Nadgauda added.

In April 1990, Seema, Renuka and Renuka’s son from her first marriage went to the Chaturshringi temple in Pune. Renuka tried to snatch a purse but was caught. At this point, she said she was doing so to feed the child.

"This, I believe, was the first turning point in this story. At this point, the daughters and the mother realised they could use children as a distraction or use them to plead for mercy after getting caught. For the next six years, they kidnapped multiple children. They used the children for thefts and pickpocketing and either abandoned them or killed them after a while when it became difficult to take care of them," Nadgauda said in the IE report.

Killing Spree That Continued For 6 Years

The first victim of the Gavit women was the son of a beggar in Kolhapur. He was picked up by Renuka in July 1990 and they brought him to Pune and named him Santosh, reported Hindustan Times.

They took him to Kolhapur, where Seema was caught while trying to steal a purse at the Mahalaxmi temple. As planned, her mother Anjanabai dropped Santosh, barely a year old at the time, who sustained injuries, the 2006 SC judgment said, as per the HT report. They used him for many such crimes. However, the child used to cry a lot due to injuries. Worried that they might get caught, Anjanabai pressed his mouth and hit his head on an iron bar killing Santosh on the spot, the order further mentioned.

This continued as the three would kidnap boys and girls and keep changing locations frequently to escape being on the police radar. They murdered at least nine of them, which could be proved later.

1996 'Revenge' Kidnapping Ended Their Crimes

The second turning point, as narrated by Nadgauda, came in 1996. In August or September that year, the women kidnapped a girl named Kranti from Nashik. She was the daughter of Anjanabai’s estranged husband, Mohan Gavit. He had left Anjanabai due to her involvement in notorious crimes and had married someone else.

The kidnapping was done with a motive of revenge. Kranti was picked up from her school by Renuka and Seema on the pretext of taking her to meet Anjanabai. As per the IE report, they killed her a few months later at Narsobachi Wadi in Kolhapur. 

As in other cases, Kranti’s disappearance was also treated as a missing persons case and later as kidnapping when it was found out that Seema and Renuka had picked her up. Nadgauda explained how a team of officers from different districts dedicatedly worked to link all the crimes.

It was after Mohan's second wife Pratibha spotted Renuka and Seema in a market in Nashik in October 1996 that the three women and Kiran were finally arrested. The police then unearthed the dark nexus of crime that left them and everyone else who heard shocked. 

Facing The Law, Finally

With the sisters and their mother facing grave charges, Kiran turned approver. Anjanabai died of illness in 1998, even before the trial began. The prosecution's case was strong, and a Kolhapur court ordered the death penalty for Seema and Renuka, creating ripples across the country as this was only the second time in India that the convicts on death row were women. Rattan Bai Jan was the first woman to be executed in India, in 1955.

The High Court upheld the sentence for Gavit sisters, and so did the Supreme Court in 2006. The sisters then filed a mercy plea in 2009, which the then President Pranab Mukherjee rejected in 2014. However, they contended that the President took more than five years to reject their mercy petitions when such a plea should have been disposed of within three months.

Consequently, the top court in 2022 ordered the commutation of the death sentences and cancelled and set aside the warrant to execute the death penalty, citing an inordinate delay in the mercy plea decision. Seema and Renuka are currently lodged in Pune's Yerawada Jail.