A 40-year-old man electrocuted his two children, leading to their death by suicide in Tamil Nadu on Friday. The incident took place at Savaryarpuram near Pudukottai in Tuticorin district. Police said the man fell into depression after his wife left him to live with another man.
According to the police, the man was distraught after his wife left the family about six months ago and was said to be living with another man. This allegedly left him depressed, after which he stopped working regularly as a truck driver and instead took up occasional painting jobs.
The two deceased children were his 14-year-old daughter, a ninth-grade student, and his 12-year-old son, a seventh-grade student. They both studied in a private school, according to a report in the Times Of India.
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Police said that on Friday, the man brought food to the children and asked them to sleep. He allegedly killed them while they were sleeping before electrocuting himself using the same wire.
His 75-year-old father, who lives with the family, was sleeping outside the room. When the door remained locked till noon on Saturday, he informed the neighbors who informed the Pudukkottai police, the report said.
After opening the door, the police found the three dead on a cot with electrical wires tied to their bodies. The bodies were sent to the Government Medical College Hospital in Tuticorin for post-mortem examination, Pudukottai police said. A case has been registered to further investigate the matter.
Tuticorin’s death comes amid a spate of recent cases involving the death of minors in Tamil Nadu. In June, a 17-year-old boy was arrested for sexually assaulting and killing a nine-year-old boy in Pudukkottai after the child disappeared while playing.
In another case, a three-year-old girl died after she was lured with biscuits and sexually assaulted in Thiruvallur district. Police arrested a migrant worker from Bihar in connection with the case, saying the investigation had implicated only one accused.
