Punjab: Unable to bear expenses, parents kill 3 girls in Jalandhar

Migrant labourer couple, who has five children, arrested. After stuffing bodies of three daughters in a box, parents took younger siblings, a boy aged two years and a one-year-old girl, along with them to work.

Poverty drove a migrant labourer and his wife to kill their three daughters in Jalandhar’s Muqsudan locality on Sunday, police said on Monday.

The migrant labourer couple, Sushil Mandal and Meenu, being arrested in Jalandhar on Monday after they confessed to poisoning three of their daughters and stuffing their bodies in the trunk seen in the backdrop. (HT Photo)

The bodies of the three girls, aged between nine and four years, were recovered from a trunk during a search of their house. Amrita Kumari, 9, Shakti Kumari, 7, and Kanchan Kumari, 4, were reported missing by their parents on Sunday.

The police arrested their father Sushil Mandal and mother Meenu, both daily-wagers, after investigation revealed that they had killed the girls by mixing pesticide in their milk on Sunday morning and then stacked their bodies in the trunk.

The couple has five children, including the three girls. After stuffing the bodies of their daughters in a box, the parents took their younger siblings, a boy aged two years and a one-year-old girl, along with them to work.

Senior superintendent of police Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar said the parents informed police at 11.15pm on Sunday that their daughters, who were playing in the street, had not returned home and were missing.

The police began searching the locality and recorded statements of the parents, who said the girls were playing unattended at home on Sunday, and neighbours.

“The police team got suspicious and found gaps in the statement of the parents. We went through CCTV footages of the area and found that the victims didn’t come out of their house. So we decided to search the house on Monday morning and found the bodies in the trunk,” Bhullar said, adding that there were no injury marks on the bodies.

During interrogation, he said, the parents confessed to killing the three girls as they could not bear their expenses. They said that they gave them poisoned milk on Sunday morning and concocted the story of them going missing to mislead the police.

A case was registered under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (tampering with evidence) of the Indian Penal Code.