Jalandhar: Man burns wife, 2 stepkids, in-laws to death in Jal village

JALANDHAR: An ahaata (small drinking outlet) owner set afire his wife, two stepchildren and parents-in-law in Bithlan village of Punjab’s Jalandhar district in the wee hours of Tuesday, leading to their death.
The culprit, Kuldeep alias Kali, 33, from Khurshaidpur village, located across the Satluj in Ludhiana district, is absconding.
Those dead are Surjan Singh, 50, his wife Jogindero, 49, their daughter Paramjit Kaur, 30, her daughter Arshdeep Kaur, 8 and son Anmol Singh, 5. The family's two-room house and two other houses in the fields nearby belong to the kin of the dead woman.
“Paramjit Kaur - the accused’s wife - had two kids from an earlier marriage and had married Kali after her first husband's death. Kali’s first wife, too, had died and he had a son from first marriage. The couple got married around a year back but had strained relations.
The accused along with his accomplices came to their house after midnight, doused them with petrol, set them on fire, bolted the door from outside and fled,” said Jalandhar Rural SP (investigation) Sarabjit Singh Bahiya.
Paramjit, her mother and one child were pulled out by their neighbours but died later. Before her death, Paramjit, the told the villagers that she heard her husband say that he would burn them to death as he threw petrol on them and set them afire. She said she did not know the other people with him.
“Investigations so far have revealed that her husband and his accomplices came on a bike and left a petrol-filled spray pump near the house in the evening. He returned at around 2 am with at least two others and entered the room where the family was sleeping, sprayed petrol on them, torched them and fled. The neighbours heard their screams, saw the fire and came to rescue the victims,” said SP Bahiya.
“The woman’s grandfather, who escaped death as he was sleeping at a distance, said the accused was harassing his wife to abandon her two children and had even given the two kids electric shocks. He wanted to take her along with him without her kids but she had refused. She had also told her family that he was a drug addict earlier and would consume chitta but then became a drunkard,” he said.
Paramjit’s uncle Lakhwinder Singh, living in the neighbouring house, said he heard Kali challenging them that he had burnt their relatives, and now they could try to save them. He then escaped.