Indian-origin mother charged with three-year-old son's murder

, Jan 20: An Indian-origin woman was today charged with the

of her three-year-old son by a UK court and was remanded in custody, prosecutors said.

Rosdeep Kular, 33, appeared in a private hearing at the Edinburgh Sheriff's Court under her married name Rosdeep Adekoya. She is also accused of attempting to defeat the ends of justice. Kular did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody and committed for further examination at a further hearing on January 28, Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said.

She had reported her son Mikaeel Kular missing from their family home in Edinburgh last Thursday morning, triggering a massive search operation. Kular was detained on Friday night and arrested and charged on Saturday after Mikaeel's body was found in a woodland behind her former home in Kirkcaldy, Fife, where she lived before moving to Edinburgh.

She was charged after almost 24 hours of questioning. Forensic teams have been working throughout the weekend at the back of the bungalow where the body was discovered. It is now the home of Pandeep Kular, Mikaeel's aunt and Rosdeep Kular's sister.

Kular, a beauty therapist and mother of five, told police that she put her son to bed in her flat in Edinburgh at 9 pm on Wednesday, but when she went to wake him up at 7:15 am the following morning he was missing.

She also said that on the night when Mikaeel allegedly disappeared, he was apparently unwell and had slept alone in the bedroom he normally shared with his twin sister Ashika. Hundreds of local residents joined in the search operation. However, mystery surrounds the little boy's final weeks in light of the discovery of his body just yards from the bungalow in Kirkcaldy where Kular used to live earlier.

Mikaeel had not been seen at his nursery school in Edinburgh since it broke up for the Christmas holidays on December 19. He failed to return when term resumed on January 7, apparently because he was suffering from a chest infection.

It also emerged that Mikaeel had never been in contact with his Pakistani-origin father. Meanwhile, police in Hampshire and Derbyshire arrested two men, aged 19 and 26, yesterday on suspicion of posting racist messages on Twitter relating to Mikaeel's disappearance. They were both questioned and released on police bail.

PTI