BJP-Cong slugfest blows lid off old woman’s murder in MP

Gruesome killing of an 85year-old woman in a village in Madhya Pradesh allegedly by her own daughter and grandson has been uncovered, thanks to a tussle between the Opposition BJP and ruling Congress over her death.

The state government sprang to action by ordering the local police to probe death of Jini Bai Uike in Rani Kamat village under Chhindwara district, after former chief minister and BJP national vice-president Shivraj Singh Chouhan tagged a story appeared in some Hindi dailies narrating how poverty has driven her family members to pack her body in a sack and throw it in the pond as they could not perform her last rites, in his Twitter wall.

Jini’s body was found on the bank of the village pond on Saturday.

The local media quoted the relatives of the deceased as saying that they could not afford the luxury of performing her funeral rites owing to poverty and hence threw her body in the pond.

Mr Chouhan seized the opportunity to attack the state government by attributing the incident to failure of chief minister Kamal Nath in implementing the welfare measures for the poor.

The state government immediately ordered the police to probe the incident. Congress spokesman here Narendra Singh Saluja released the probe report on Monday to ‘call Mr Chouhan’s bluff’.

The police probe has revealed that the deceased’s daughter Phulbati and the latter’s son Panji bundled Jini Bai in a sack when she was alive and threw it in the local water body, considering her a liability for them.

“Postmortem of the body has indicated that the death of Jini Bai was caused due to drowning,” a press release issued by the police said.

“My mother was sick and old. We considered her a liability for the family and hence took such a drastic step,” the police quoted Phulbati as saying.

Phulbati and her son were booked for murder.

While Phulbati was arrested, her son was absconding, the police said.

THE POLICE PROBE has revealed that the deceased’s daughter Phulbati and the latter’s son Panji bundled Jini Bai in a sack when she was alive and threw it in the local water body, considering her a liability for the family