Mother, 2 kids found ‘murdered’ at home in Muzaffarpur

The victims have been identified as Rita Devi, 30, her daughter Vaishnavi Kumari, 3, and seven-month-old son Rudra Kumar. Police said they were all strangled to death.

A 30-year-old woman and her two little children were allegedly murdered on Tuesday in a village under the Kanti police station area of Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, police said. The murders, according to police, could be linked to an intra-family dispute.

Deceased mother and her two children

The victims have been identified as Rita Devi, 30, her daughter Vaishnavi Kumari, 3, and seven-month-old son Rudra Kumar. Police said they were all strangled to death. She also had two older children who were not with her at the time of the incident.

Rita’s husband, Santosh Kumar Sah (also known as Mithailal Sah), discovered the three dead and tied with a rope made of clothes when he returned at 3 a.m. and found the house locked from the outside. Muzaffarpur Rural SP Rajesh Kumar Prabhakar said that he called family members and neighbours and they broke open the door to find the three bodies inside. The bodies were discovered in a room. Injury marks were found on their necks and blood was oozing from their noses, said the SP.

Police said the family was poor and no belongings were missing, indicating the murders were orchestrated with a different motive, possibly related to a family dispute involving a close relative.

Mithailal Sah, a professional caterer, told the police that he had gone to Samastipur on Monday night with his brother to work at a wedding function. Mithailal said, “I spoke with my wife around 10 pm. When I returned, I found the room locked from outside. Two of my children Nitya Kumari, 7, and Aditya Kumar, 5, were sleeping in another room with their grandmother but they did not hear any noise about the incident.”

He accused his cousins with whom he had a family dispute, as the suspected perpetrators of the murders. Sah said, “They already sold our land and even on Monday afternoon, they threatened dire consequences for my family but I ignored the threat.””

Based on his complaint, the police detained two women for questioning. However, his cousins were absconding and the police said they were conducting raids to arrest them.

The bodies were sent to SKMCH, Muzaffarpur, for post-mortem.