Throats slit, windpipes cut: Delhi man kills pregnant wife, kids in brutal crime

While the probe is on, police suspect that the motive behind the horrific murders could be the man's preference for a son, police said.

In a horrifying murder case from Delhi, a man allegedly killed his two-month pregnant wife and three daughters by slitting their throats at the family's home in north Delhi's Samaypur Badli area on Tuesday.

The dead bodies of the woman, 27-year-old Anita, and her three daughters aged 3, 4 and 5, were reportedly spotted by the neighbors and relatives on Wednesday morning. (Hindustan Times File)

The dead bodies of the woman, 27-year-old Anita, and her three daughters aged 3, 4 and 5, were reportedly spotted by the neighbors and relatives on Wednesday morning, while the accused, Munchun Kewat, is absconding.

Police told HT that the bodies of the woman and her three children were found in a ground-floor room in a pool of blood.

“The killings came to light around 8 am when neighbours alerted the police. A police team from Samaypur Badli police station rushed to the spot and found the bodies of the woman and the three children lying inside a ground-floor room in a pool of blood,” Deputy commissioner of police (outer north) Hareshwar Swami said.

While the probe is on, police suspect that the motive behind the grisly murders could be the man's preference for a son, police said, news agency PTI reported.

Throats slit, windpipes cut

Describing the crime scene as ‘extremely brutal’, police said the injuries, caused by a sharp-edged weapon, were so deep that their windpipes had been cut.

While Anita, Kewat and their children lived in a single-room accommodation in a street in Chandan Vihar, Kewat’s two elder brothers lived three streets away with their families on rent. Kewat worked as a vegetable seller at Azadpur Mandi.

It was Kewat's 10-year-old nephew who saw the dead bodies on Wednesday morning as he wanted to go to Azadpur mandi with him.

“He had been pestering us that he wanted to go to the market so we told him to go with Munchun. Around 6:30-7am, he went to their house,” Anita’s sister-in-law Sugni Devi, 36, said.

The boy described the scene as “gory”. “The main gate was closed from outside so I opened it and went inside. Their room’s door was open but the curtain was raised. I went inside and found them unconscious with blood all around,” the boy said.

What the police said

With the main suspect, Kewat, missing, police are investigating all possible angles to the case, including a suspected extramarital affair. However, preliminary inquiry suggests that the gruesome killings may have been triggered by the couple's three girl children and the lack of a son, police said.

Kewat, allegedly intoxicated his wife and daughters before slitting their throats, police was quoted as saying.

An investigator told HT that one of the neighbours told them that the couple had a verbal spat on Tuesday night. “They said that the couple had a fight but they did not hear anything except loud voices so we don’t know the cause of the fight,” the officer said. Investigators who accessed the CCTV footage saw the accused running - around 5am - from the street close to home. “His phone was switched off in Jahangirpuri,” he said.

Police said a PCR call was received at 8.07 am on Wednesday regarding the bodies lying inside a room on the ground floor of the house.

Kewat is originally from Bihar's Patna district and had been living in the area with his wife and children for the past two years. The couple did not usually fight, relatives said. Kewat worked as a vegetable seller at Azadpur Mandi.

A case under Section 103(1) (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been registered and multiple teams have been formed to trace and apprehend Kewat, police said.

With inputs from Hemani Bhandari