Mentally unstable man, who killed parents by setting house on fire, held

A 40-year-old man accused of killing his parents by setting his house on fire in west Delhi’s Moti Nagar on Friday was arrested on Saturday, police said.

Deputy commissioner of police (west) Vijay Kumar said that police arrested Santosh Gupta after receiving information that he was “loitering” in a street near his home in Sudershan Park on Saturday evening.

“Gupta had used three litres of petrol to set his house on fire. He stored petrol at his home. He didn’t realise that he was wanted by the police for killing his parents,” said the DCP.

Gupta’s parents, Chedi Lal (70) and Lakshmi (63), were charred to death and a tenant injured in the blaze that occurred around 3 am on Friday. The tenant had claimed he had seen Gupta run away after his mother had claimed in her last moments that her son had set the house on fire.

With the police unsure if the act was intended to kill the couple, they had registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The DCP said that Gupta will be booked under the same charges. Unmarried and undergoing treatment for “mental-health issues”, Gupta was allegedly violent and abusive towards his parents for years, his relatives and neighbours had alleged. “He was into drugs and would beat and threaten to kill his parents if they did not give him money,” his brother Pritam had alleged. Quoting the accused, the DCP said the burning act was in response to frequent quarrels with his parents. “Gupta said he wanted to renounce the world and become a saint, but his parents wouldn’t let him leave home. He was angry with his parents over that and set the house on fire in anger before fleeing,” DCP said.