During interrogation, the accused claimed that he did not kill her intentionally.
A man was on Thursday arrested for allegedly killing his three-year-old niece and disposing of her body in Maharashtra's Thane district, police said.
The girl had gone missing from near her house in Prem Nagar in Thane's Ulhasnagar on November 18 and was found dead on Thursday.
During interrogation, the accused, who is said to be in his 30s, confessed to the crime but claimed that he did not kill her intentionally.
He claimed that he was playing with her when he jokingly slapped her and she collided with the kitchen slab and died, the police said.
He then got scared and tried to destroy the girl's body by burning it. He then threw the body into the bushes.
The police have sent the body for postmortem.