Bantwal: Man kills mother in drunken stupor, wife hands him over to police

Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network - Bantwal

Bantwal, Feb 21: In a startling incident that brought to forth the ill-effects of alcoholism, a man in a drunken stupor killed his aged mother on the night of Tuesday February 19. The incident took place at Padnoor in Vittal here.

The deceased has been identified as Sankamma (75), mother of the accused Dombaiyya Poojary (51), a resident of Pilinja near Kudandka, Padnoor.

It is said that Dombaiyya was in the habit of coming home drunk and torturing his mother mentally and physically. He used to lose his temper over trivial matters and take his aged mother to task for not earning her living.

On Tuesday night too he came home drunk and picked a quarrel with Sankamma. In a fit of rage, he is said to have attacked her with a sharp wooden object. When his wife Lalita and two children tried to intervene, he chased them away with a threat.

Frightened, Lalita and the children spent the night outside in the open, and when they returned home in the morning, they found Sankamma's body on the verandah. Wanting to hide the crime from public eye, Dombaiyya told her not to reveal it to anybody, and shifted the corpse inside the house.

Lalita, who feared that her husband would secretly cremate her mother-in-law, left from the house saying that she was going to visit a neighbour. However, the brave woman instead went straight to Vittal police station and complained about her husband's crime.

The police arrived at the spot even as Domabaiyya was making arrangements to cremate his mother, and arrested him.

Lalita is Dombaiyya's second wife. He was earlier married to Nalini from Balnadu in Puttur and had four male children. About 13 years ago, he quarrelled with Nalini and the children, after which he married Lalita and had two children.

Vittal police are investigating the case, based on a complaint by Lalita. DySP P Sadananda Varnekar, probationary ASP Kuldeep Singh, circle inspector Anil S Kulkarni, Vittal police inspector Madhavakudlu and other police officials visited the spot.