Hate, lies and triple murder

For years, Davesh Kumar, 31, alias Rintu, had viewed his stepmother as an intruder in the family. He is now the prime suspect in her murder along with that of two of her daughters in Patna last week. Other than dislike, property is suspected to be an immediate motive.

Since the triple murder — their heads were smashed in with a hammer — Rintu is believed to have fled to Toronto, leaving the very day he reportedly confessed to his father.

Rintu ran a business in Delhi while his father lived in Patna with his second wife Alina, 45, and their daughters Sonali and Purnima, 19 and 11.

On November 14, the day of the triple murder, Rintu reportedly took the precaution of drawing his father away from the house. Gopal Sharan Singh, the father, is a retired government official. He has told the police his son, visiting Patna, had invited him over to Delhi to see his newborn son. Rintu asked his father not to inform Alina that he would travel to Delhi but to tell her instead that he was going to the family's ancestral home at Katihar. Gopal Sharan Singh spent the day at a neighbour's house before leaving for Delhi with his son, he has told the police.

"Rintu kept his father's mobile with him, on the pretext of needing a local connection while in Patna," said Patna deputy inspector general Sunil Kumar, who is supervising the probe. "Rintu went back to his home around noon and first killed Alina, hitting her repeatedly on the head with a hammer."

The DIG said Alina was alone and Rintu would have easily overpowered her. Yet police suspect at least one person helped Rintu in the killing. Of his stepsisters, first Purnima returned from school and then Sonali from college. Only one neighbour heard a single shriek during the entire period, but he assumed it was something trivial.

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