Alcohol addict murders minor daughters after tiff with wife

Coimbatore: A 48-year-old alcoholic, who allegedly strangled his two daughters to death after a quarrel with his wife at Masakkalipalayam near Singanallur, was arrested on Friday.
The victims were identified as Hemavarshini, 15, and P Srija, 8, daughters of Padmanaban, a marketing executive with a private firm.

“He often fought with his 37-year-old wife Selvarani and beat her up. The family was residing in a house on Neelikonar Street at Masakkalipalayam. Padmanaban’s mother was also staying with them. He used to quarrel with her also,” a police officer said.

On Thursday night, Padmanaban came home drunk and fought with Selvarani and thrashed her. “Unable to bear the torture, Selvarani told him that she was leaving for her mother’s house in Vellalore. When she asked her two daughters to accompany her, Padmanaban threatened to commit suicide if the children were to go with their mother. So, the girls stayed back,” the officer said.

Padmanaban’s mother also left the house and spent the night in a neighbour’s house. On Friday morning, she returned home, but went back to the neighbour’s house on seeing her son in front of the house. “After a while, she went to the house again and this time her son wasn’t there. She entered the bedroom and tried to wake up the girls. She was shocked to find them dead and informed the neighbours,” the officer told TOI.

Singanallur police reached the spot and conducted inquiry. They said Padmanaban might have murdered his daughters by strangulating them. The bodies were sent to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital for postmortem.

Hemavarshini was a Class X student and Srija was a Class III student of a private school at Singanallur.

The Singanallur police registered a case under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and arrested Padmanaban from Peelamedu.