Andhra couple kill daughters, 27 and 22, over superstition, claimed they could revive them
HYDERABAD: He is the vice-principal of a college; she, his wife, is a gold medallist in mathematics and runs a popular Iit-test prep institute in Madanapalle, a city in Andhra Pradesh just around three-and-half hours from Bengaluru.
Yet, on Sunday night, the two of them killed their daughters, 27 and 22, convinced that their (the couple’s) supernatural powers would bring the young women back to life.
The case, which horrified the country as more details emerged, brought to mind the Burari deaths of 2018, when 11 members of a household in the Delhi locality killed themselves believing that they would be revived.
The Madanapalle Police have taken the parents, Malluru Purushottam Naidu , around 55 years old, and Padmaja Naidu, around 50, into custody and are questioning them. Neighbours have spoken of the involvement of other people in the rituals in the Naidu household over the past few days, but details are sketchy. The neighbours also heard some screams on Sunday night — and summoned the police, who encountered a couple in a trance, convinced that they
could bring their daughters back to life. Madanapalle deputy superintendent of police Ravi Manohara Chary said the family moved into their new home at Shivanagar only a few months ago. “The parents sound very superstitious and appear to be suffering from a severe psychological disorder,” he said.
The family, according to neighbours, has been in isolation through the pandemic, discouraging even the help from coming into work. Alekhya, the elder daughter, was enrolled in a postgraduate programme at the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and had returned home in August; she was preparing for the Civil Services examination.
The younger daughter, Sai Divya, had completed an MBA and was learning music at the KM Music Conservatory in Chennai, police said.
Chary said that the couple believed that the “coronavirus pandemic was an account of some evil forces and they were performing rituals to ward off these forces”. Neighbours also spoke of some other people seen at the house during these rituals.
On Sunday, police said, after the rituals were completed, the parents first killed their elder daughter in the prayer room itself, by stuffing her mouth with a small copper tumbler and smashing her head with a dumbbell. Later, they took the younger daughter to her room in the first floor of the house and stabbed her to death with a trident. Both the young women were dressed in red. It wasn’t immediately clear whether they were willing participants in the rituals or were coerced into them.
Later, the DSP said, Naidu called a physical education teacher in his college and informed him about the murders. The teacher immediately informed the police. Apart from the DSP, inspector of police Srinivasulu and sub-inspectors Dilip Kumar and Rama Devi rushed to the house.
Chary said that initial inquiries suggest that the mother committed both murders with the father assisting her. “The couple was in a trance and giving incoherent answers. They said they had spiritual powers and they were in contact with supernatural powers in the sky. They said their daughters would come alive again the next day and repeatedly requested us to leave the bodies.”
The police are also examining video grabs from closed-circuit television cameras in the vicinity to identify others involved in the rituals. “It is a million dollars question as to how such an educated family could be so superstitious,” Chary rued.
The police have booked a case of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. “We sent the bodies of the daughters to Madanapalle government hospital for autopsy. We shall produce the couple before the magistrate on Tuesday,” Chary added.