KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, May 11: In a sensational incident, a 35-year-old man strangulated his two children before committing suicide by hanging at his house.
The gruesome incident took place at Indkata village in Ashantalia panchayat under the Chakradharpur police station area in West Singhbhum district, about 85 km away from Jamshedpur in the wee hours of Wednesday.
Those murdered were 12-year-old boy Sangam Mahto and nine-year-old girl Manshi Mahto, both children of Mukesh Mahto.
Police have recovered all the three bodies and sent them to the Chaibasa Sadar Hospital for postmortem having registered cases of murder and suicide on the statement made by Sanju Mahto, widow of Mukesh.
According to sources, the family of Mukesh Mahto was sleeping in the courtyard of their house on Tuesday night.
At about 11 pm last night, Mukesh informed his father-in-law Om Prakash Mahto over his cellphone that he would kill his children in the night and next morning he will have to take his daughter Sanju back to her house.
Officer in charge of Chakradharpur thana Chandrashekhar Kumar said after getting the information, Om Prakash who resides about 10 km away from Indkata got anxious.
“Soon after getting the threat call, Om Prakash contacted Mukesh’s elder brother who resides in the neighbourhood and asked him to visit his house. The elder brother sent his son to his uncle’s house immediately, but he found all the four members of the family were in deep slumber and reported to his father accordingly. But in the morning, Sanju was found wailing over the bodies of her children,” said Chandrashekhar.
The OC who had talked to Sanju during the investigation said that the assailant father took his children one after another inside the house from their sleep and strangulated them. Later, he committed suicide by hanging from the ceiling fan.
The OC said there was a marital dispute between Mukesh and Sanju which is suspected to be the reason behind the sensational murder of the two minors and also the suicide of Mukesh Mahto. He pointed out that Mukesh used to take alcohol regularly, adding that an investigation into the case is on.
