Man drives wife, children to suicide

Man drives wife, children to suicide
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

KARWAR, FEB 26: Unable to bear the harassment by her husband, Shusheela (45) of Markaalahalli village of Ankola taluk committed suicide while taking the lives of her eight children.

Ganapathy, Shusheela's husband, who hails from Kanagila village near Ankola, had a three-acre farm. He was a nightmare for the villagers of this taluk as he was known to bite people he picked quarrels with. Villagers say he used to assault his family very often.

On January 26, a neighbour, who happened to see Ganapathy hitting his wife, and protested, had his leg cut off by a sickle. Ganapathy was arrested by the police on January 27 along with his son Srikanth and daughter Meera. They were released on bail on Feb 16.

Just before committing the tragic act, the family had visited Dharmasthala and their native village on Feb 21. Shusheela, who returned with her eight children to Markaalahalli, was heard telling people that she was fed up with life.

When Shusheela's door remained closed till late on Saturday afternoon, neighbours alerted the village pradhan Vinayaka Damodhar, who saw five bodies through an open window of the house. They immediately alerted the police who broke open the door and recovered the bodies of Shusheela, Bheeramma (19), Meera (12), Shashikala (14) and Jyothi (12), who had all consumed pesticide. A pesticide bottle was found near the bodies.

Neighbours then started a frantic search for the other four members of the family. They found the bodies of Meenakshi (24) and Srikanth hanging from trees in Mastikatte forest area. Later, they found the bodies of Tara and Kiran floating in the Handihole river.

Ganapathy, who was informed of the deaths, remained unemotional, said a senior police official G B Chhabbi.

This is the first time such gruesome deaths have been reported in North Canara district.