A 48-year-old school teacher was arrested for allegedly killing his wife and three children with an axe over financial distress in Assam’s Dhemaji district, police said.
The incident happened in the Telem area of Dhemaji on Wednesday morning. Firoz allegedly killed his wife, Sinowara Begum, 33, and their three children, aged 13, 8 and 5.
Locals initially caught Ali, tied him to a tree and later handed him over to the police. Officials said a case was registered and further investigation is underway.
“We recovered the bodies from the house and sent them to Dhemaji Civil Hospital for postmortem,” officer-in-charge of the Simenchapori Police Station Jitendra Borah said.
“We are questioning him and also other family members and persons familiar with the case,” Borah said.
Firoz used to work as a teacher at a private English-medium school in the locality. When caught by the locals, Firoz said that he was unable to provide his family with a proper life with his 10,000 salary and that he killed them because he could not cope with his financial situation.
A video of Firoz’s statement was later shared on social media. “We are waiting for the postmortem report and a thorough investigation is also underway. It is too early to come to a conclusion yet,” a senior police officer said.
{{/usCountry}}A video of Firoz’s statement was later shared on social media. “We are waiting for the postmortem report and a thorough investigation is also underway. It is too early to come to a conclusion yet,” a senior police officer said.
{{/usCountry}}Locals described Firoz as “generally calm” and said that they had never seen him behaving violently. “We never heard him raise his voice. But on Wednesday morning, we heard loud screams,” a local said.
“The door was closed from inside and he was asking everyone not to enter the room. When the door was finally broken open, we saw him holding an axe stained with blood,” the local added.
Police said that this claim is yet to be established; however, they have recovered an axe allegedly used in the killings.
“The deceased persons had injury marks on different parts of their bodies and the suspected weapon will be sent for forensic examination,” an officer said.