RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Aug.7: Women’s security in the state has again come under the scanner of civilized society after the mother of four children, Dukhni Devi (35), was shot dead on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday when she was sleeping in her home at village Satbarba Chatti, about 150km from the state capital under Satbara police station area of Palamu district.
The woman was in the business of selling illicit country liquor. Her 14-yr-old son Pawan Kumar, who is the eldest, informed the police that it was fall out of her intervention in a fight among three who had come to consume liquor. Palamu Superintendent of Police (SP) Chandan Kumar Sinha expressed his inability to give a conclusive statement in the matter.
“The three, who had come to consume liquor, were fighting in a drunken stage around 8 pm on Friday. My mother intervened in the matter. After my mother intervened, the three stopped fighting. In the night when everyone was sleeping they returned and shot my mother dead,” a policeman quoted her son saying.
SP Sinha said: “Until the main accused is arrested, it is difficult to give any conclusive statement in the matter. “
Asked Sinha about development in the case, he said: “We have arrested four persons in this connection and recovered the arms used in the crime. The fifth and main accused is yet to be arrested.”
A police official said the woman was shot at her temple from close range. The body was sent for autopsy. “Out of the four arrested, one is a woman,” the police official said.
Police officials said the husband of the deceased had left the village a week ago to work as a labourer at Visakhapatnam.
