The tragic shooting of a Dalit school teacher, his wife, and two minor daughters in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi was due to a fallout of an “illicit relationship gone sour”, the police said on Friday.
According to the police, the accused, Chandan Verma, had an affair with the teacher's wife for 18 months - with whom he was having some issues.
Also read: Amethi Dalit family's chilling murder: Father says son's killer must suffer same fate
“Verma has confessed to killing the family. He said that he had been having an affair with Poonam for the last 18 months. However, some disturbance occurred in the relationship, which caused him stress…It appears that he reached the house of the victim and got enraged due to some reason, after which he began shooting the family members, killing all of them,” the police said while addressing the media.
Sunil Kumar, 35, a government school teacher, his 32-year-old wife Poonam, and the couple's two daughters were shot dead in the Ahorwa Bhawani area of Amethi on Thursday.
{{/usCountry}}Sunil Kumar, 35, a government school teacher, his 32-year-old wife Poonam, and the couple's two daughters were shot dead in the Ahorwa Bhawani area of Amethi on Thursday.
{{/usCountry}}A day after the incident, Verma was arrested near a toll plaza in Noida while he was on his way to Delhi. While the police were trying to recover the pistol and its magazine used by him to kill the family, Verma snatched the gun and fired at the police. During this time, one of the police officials shot the accused in his leg, reported PTI.
Verma had become the prime suspect in the case after it was found that a complaint had been filed against him earlier under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 19, by the school teacher's wife.
According to the superintendent of police, Anoop Kumar Singh, Verma had even tried to end his life by shooting himself after killing the family, but the gun misfired.
Also read: Rahul speaks to bereaved father as Amethi victims’ bodies reach Rae Bareli village
What did victim's complaint say?
Poonam, in her complaint, had mentioned that Verma abused her and her husband using casteist remarks - following which the section of SC/ST Act for atrocities against Dalits was slapped on him.
In the FIR, the complainant said: “If anything happens to me or my family, Verma should be held responsible for it.”
‘5 people are going to die’: Accused's WhatsApp status
Nearly three weeks after the victim had filed a complaint against Verma, he posted his “clear intentions” on his WhatsApp bio, saying: “Five people are going to die; I will show you soon”.
According to the police, the accused intended to shoot himself after killing the family of four. “He was the fifth person, but his suicide attempt failed,” the police said.
However, the incident led to widespread denunciation of the Rae Bareli police, which allegedly failed to decode the “writing on the wall” even after the accused's WhatsApp status. The opposition also launched a sharp attack against the BJP government over the law-and-order situation in the state.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath paid his condolences in a post on X and said, “The incident that happened in Amethi district today is highly condemnable and unforgivable. The Uttar Pradesh government stands with the victim's family in this hour of grief. The culprits of this incident will not be spared at any cost, the strictest legal action will be taken against them.”
(With inputs from PTI)