Indian man arrested for death of toddler in Oz

A 23-year-old Indian man was arrested on Sunday and charged over the death of an Indian toddler, whose dumped body was found three days ago in a Melbourne suburb.

Sources said the wife of Dhillon Gursewak, who has been arrested, is likely to be charged for helping her husband in disposing off the toddler's body.

Gursewak, who lived in the same house as the three-year-old boy Gurshan Singh Channa and his parents from Punjab, has been charged with manslaughter due to criminal negligence and appeared in an out-of-sessions hearing at St Kilda Road police complex, local media reports said.

The police also said Gursewak, a part-time taxi driver, was not a relative of the toddler though they lived in the same house.

"The court heard Dhillon allegedly put the unconscious Channa in the boot of a car and drove around for three hours. It is alleged he then dumped him on the side of a road without checking if he was alive," an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report said.

Dhillon was refused bail and will reappear in the Melbourne magistrate's court on Tuesday.

Channa's body was found by a council worker on Thursday night, six hours after he disappeared from a rented property shared by his parents with friends and family here.

A total of 12 people lived in the house.

Channa was in Australia on a holiday along with his parents.