Mourners carry little Sachin Dhani's coffin yesterday. Photo / Michael Craig
Sachin Dhani's devastated family yesterday laid their "poor, innocent, harmless" little boy to rest, four days after the 16-month-old died at Starship Hospital of severe head injuries.
Blunt force killed the toddler, a blow or blows to the head inflicted while his relatives in Mt Wellington were babysitting
him on Tuesday night.
Police expected to lay charges soon but were waiting on reports from pathologists and paediatricians.
The relatives who had been babysitting Dhani had two older children, twin boys aged about 3, who had been removed and were in the care of other family members.
"That's something we will need to be speaking about with CYFS next week," Detective Senior Sergeant Scott Beard said.
Shortly before the midday funeral, Chris Robson, a member of the Dhani family, told the Herald on Sunday they were "shocked and grieving", and still lost for answers.
"Our lawyers have advised us to make no comment. We still don't know what happened. The family's reeling right now - we're still in shock. We haven't even started grieving properly yet."
Mourners lined the garage at the Dhani home in Remuera before the hearse arrived, and carried the small coffin into Purewa Cemetery and Crematorium.
Back in Mt Wellington, the cordons had just come down from the tiny flat where a police forensic team had spent the past three days.
"These sorts of investigations are obviously tragic for the family, but difficult for the police as well," said Beard. "It's an emotional type of investigation because a number of the police have young children and you just think here's a poor, innocent, harmless, 16-month-old baby boy."
Tiny socks and singlets were pegged on a washing line in the Mt Wellington carport; a plastic red and yellow trike was abandoned beside a pile of rubbish down the side of the house.
A neighbour said the relatives, an Indian couple, had moved in six weeks ago but had not been back to the flat since Tuesday night.
They were pulled over for driving erratically that night, with the twins in the car and baby Dhani unconscious.
Police immediately saw he was terribly hurt, put him in their car and raced to Ascot Hospital, Beard said.
He was put on life support and transferred to Starship.
The baby's parents were with him when he died at 1.40pm on Thursday.
