Odagaon: In a shocking incident, a 21-year-old youth strangled his wife and two little daughters in cold blood before surrendering to the police at Petapalli village in Odagaon of Nayagarh district Tuesday.
Bhagirathi Nayak murdered his wife Shanti and their daughters Twinkle (4) and Ratri, who was four months old over a marital dispute, according to police.
Bhagirathi was in a live-in relationship with Shanti who was three years older than him. The couple was together since 2015. Twinkle was Shanti’s daughter from a previous marriage, police revealed.
According to sources, Bhagirathi worked as a cook at a private technical training centre in the capital city where he met Shanti who worked there as a maid. Bhagirathi began an affair with Shanti and she gave birth to Ratri four months back.
However, misunderstandings began to erupt as Bhagirathi failed to take responsibility of Shanti and their two daughters. This led to frequent fights between the couple. Bhagirathi was reportedly frustrated over the fact that he became a father at a very young age, police said.
Failing to bear the responsibility, Bhagirathi reportedly fled abandoning Shanti and their two daughters in Bhubaneswar. Later, Shanti reached Bhagirathi’s village and sought the help of police in tracing his whereabouts.
On learning Shanti’s plight, IIC Ramchandra Sahu helped her to get her two daughters admitted at an orphanage in Nayagarh around two weeks back. However, Bhagirathi called Shanti and asked her to return to his village along with their daughters Monday night. Instead of taking them to his village, Bhagirathi took them to an isolated place where they slept in a school verandah.
Shanti suspected something amiss in Bhagirathi’s behaviour and demanded to know why he brought them to the isolated place. Bhagirathi then flew into a rage and strangled her to death. He then proceeded to kill the two innocent girls who were fast asleep.
Later, Bhagirathi surrendered before local police in the wee hours of Tuesday. He said he wanted to take revenge on Shanti as she was threatening to get him arrested for deserting her. Nayagarh superintendent of police Kanwar Vishal Singh and DSP T Jaga Rao Reddy reached the spot and took stock of the situation. PNN