Namakkal: Two siblings below ten years became the tragic victims of their father's intense anger against his wife and father-in-law as he pushed the children into a 250-ft deep ditch from the Seekuparai viewpoint in Kolli hills in Namakkal district, sending shockwaves across this belt.
Police said Siranjeevi, 28, a daily wage worker of Arasampatti village in Kollimalai union, was frequently quarreling and harassing his 25-year-old wife, Bakkiyam. They have two children, a boy and a girl, Girirajan, 8, and Kavidarshini, 5.
Habituated to liquor, Siranjeevi's violent pranks became so intolerable that Bakkiyam recently went back to her home, police said. He invited his wife and children to return home for the recent Deepavali festival, but she declined, police said. Meanwhile, Siranjeevi's father-in-law, Vallaiya Gounder, fearing harm to his two grandchildren took them safely to his house, police said.
Siranjeevi had sought to goad his wife and children again last week to return to Arasampatti, but the standoff continued, police said. Angered by the actions of his wife and father-in-law, on Tuesday afternoon, Siranjeevi allegedly went to the school where his kids were studying, picked them up and took them to the Seekuparai viewpoint in Kolli hills.
Even as the two kids were playing there, misdirecting his anger against his wife and father-in-law, onto his two children, Siranjeevi allegedly pushed them into a 250-ft deep gorge below, leading to their terrible death.
Meanwhile, Bakkiyam, worried that her two kids had not returned from school, was informed by the authorities that they were picked up by their father. Fearing something ominous, she filed a complaint at Vazhavandhinadu police station.
Police went to Arasampatti and quizzed Siranjeevi about the missing kids when he reportedly confessed that he had pushed them into a deep gorge. Police then arrested him, even as on Wednesday, fire brigade personnel retrieved the bodies of the two kids from the ditch and sent them to Namakkal government hospital for post-mortem.
