Bhubaneswar: A man and his wife strangled two of their three minor children to death in Orissa after performing rituals before deities with a hope that it will make the children alive and bring good fortune to their family, police said Wednesday.
Padmalochan Gahan and his wife Minati killed their eldest son, nine-year-old Harishchandra on Saturday night and second son, seven-year-old Deepak, on Sunday night in their house at Tilopal village in Mayurbhanj, officer-in-charge of the local Kaptipada police station, Pitbas Naik, said.
The barbaric act came to the notice after some villagers informed the police on Wednesday, he said.
The couple said they committed the crime on the advice of a mystic Jagannath Tudu who had assured them that the children would be alive after the death of their last child and together bring good fortune with them.
Police said Tudu, who hails from the neighbouring Banakati village in the same district, was absconding.
After killing both of their sons, the couple was planning to kill their third and youngest - a three-month-old girl on Wednesday night, Naik said.
They had kept the bodies in front of the photographs of several Hindu deities in a small room of their two-roomed mud house. The bodies have been sent for post mortem.
The couple was facing social isolation from the villagers since past few years for practicing witchcraft.
Tilopal is a small village about 50 kilometre from the district head quarter of Baripada and has a population of about 200.
Comments
0 comment