Man killed in quarrel over loss in cock fight

A tribal woman in her mid thirties allegedly killed her father-in-law by squeezing his testicles after the latter intervened to settle a brawl between the woman and her husband over a loss incurred in cockfighting.

The incident took place on Sunday when Anima Kharia, a resident of Saitola village under Basia police station in Gumla district, picked up a brawl with her husband Bhairaw Kerketta.

Earlier in the day, the couple went to village’s rath mela (fair) with their rooster for a cockfight, a common practice in villages. They, however, lost the game and had to give up their rooster to the winner.

“When they returned home in the evening, the couple, who were probably in drunken state, entered into a scuffle over their loss in the cockfight. Anima’s father-in-law Gau Kerketta, 60, interfered to pacify but the woman, in a fit of rage, grabbed his testicles and squeezed them resulting in the old man’s death on the spot,” said Basia police station officer-in-charge (OC) Ashok Kumar.

“The incident was reported to the police next morning. We have arrested the woman and booked her under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). She was forwarded to Gumla jail on Tuesday,” the OC said.

Anima, in her statement given to the police, admitted that she had committed the crime but it was accidental and not intentional.

Police sources said the sudden pressure exerted by Anima on the old man’s testicles led to a rupture in the organ, resulting in internal bleeding. The man possibly died as he could not bear the pain, they said.

“The man died of excessive bleeding. This was one of the causes mentioned in the postmortem examination report,” OC Kumar said.

The couple, however, was not charged with participating in cockfight, a sport banned in Jharkhand in the wake of several protests by animal rights activists.