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Odisha woman, friend batter her 3-yr-old son, throw him off roof: Police
Pattamundai town inspector Tapan Kumar Rout said woman initially tried to pin the blame for the relationship and her child’s murder on the male tutor
Bhubaneswar: A 35-year-old woman and her friend were arrested on Monday on charges of murdering her three-year-old son in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, reportedly because they wanted to start afresh, police said.
The woman was identified by the police as Sasmita Nath of Kendrapara’s Matiapada village and her friend, as Laxmidhar Bai of Guptira village. Both were arrested on a complaint by the woman’s family, Pattamundai police station inspector Tapan Kumar Rout.
Police said the woman and her friend allegedly took her son to the roof of her rented house in Kendrapara’s Pattamundai town on Saturday, battered him and threw him off the roof.
She then ran down, picked up her dead child and ran to the hospital where she claimed that the child fell off the roof in an accident. The child was declared brought dead by doctors.
Police said no one doubted her version.
The child was the youngest of her three children; the other two were older and had been lately living with their grandparents in the village.
Sasmita Nath’s husband had been working in Bengaluru to support the family back home.
Rout said she moved to Pattamundai town 100km from her village, ostensibly for a better education for her children and was living on rent.
It is here that she met Laxmidhar Bai, her children’s tutor. The two soon got into a relationship, something that the children figured out soon enough. Sasmita eventually left her daughter and elder son with her parents; the youngest child continued to stay with her. “This often led to quarrels between them (Sasmita and Laxmidhar),” the Pattamundai police inspector said.
On Sunday, Sasmita and Laxmidhar went to meet her parents who asked her about her youngest son. Police said she was not able to give a convincing response. Her two older children subsequently told the parents that the two were in a relationship and that Laxmidhar, once their tuition teacher, used to beat them mercilessly.
Sasmita’s family called the police and asked them to probe their missing grandson.
Inspector Rout said the woman initially tried to pin the blame on Laxmidhar, saying that he forced her into the relationship and killed her child. But she was also arrested after Laxmidhar’s confessional statement that indicted her.
