Poverty, isolation drove mother-son duo to suicide in Patiala

The house number 2040/13 has been locked by the police at Jourian Bhattian where last night a 60-year-old woman and her intellectually challenged son committed suicide and burned themselves by pouring kerosene and setting themselves on fire inside their house.

The house number 2040/13 has been locked by the police at Jourian Bhattian where last night a 60-year-old woman and her intellectually challenged son committed suicide and burned themselves by pouring kerosene and setting themselves on fire inside their house.

Police inspecting the house where the mother-son duo committed suicide in Patiala. (Bharat Bhushan/HT Photo)

Rita (60) and her son, Vijay (35), had been living in a small house for the past 34 years. Rita and her husband had been living separately for past many years.

The incident took place about 10 pm on Monday night. When neighbours saw smoke coming out from Rita’s home, they rushed towards the house and found them dead.

“She had lived a miserable life,” said, Rita’s brother, Bhupinder Kumar, who lives near her house.

He said Rita got married in 1981 in Samana, but her husband never worked for the livelihood of the family. She was then brought to Patiala after a year and soon she gave birth to Vijay, but he was intellectually challenged since birth and could not become her support, he said.

“We found three vacant bottles of kerosene in her house. They both were totally burnt. The postmortem report shows that it was a suicide case,” said, Gurpreet Singh Bhinder, station house inspector, Kotwali police station.