‘Kothrud incident could be due to long distrust’

Psychologist believe the Kothrud incident — in which a construction worker allegedly poisoned his wife and his three children before setting himself on fire - could be due to the fall-out of "a long-standing pattern of pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others."

Parshuram Madiyappa Kalkanthi (30), was reportedly depressed by certain superstitious beliefs following which he poisoned his wife Jamuna (25) and children - Payal (7), Manisha (5) and Karan (3). He later set himself ablaze at their house in Lokmanya Nagar in Kothrud area. "Since nobody from the family is alive, it is difficult to ascertain the exact reason behind the incident," police said.

"He was a paranoid schizophrenic, and such a person suffers from delusions," said Vanita Malhotra, a counsellor and psychotherapist from Synergy Counselling and Training Centre.

Malhotra said a paranoid personality disorder is generally characterised by a long-standing pattern of pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others. "A person with paranoid personality disorder will nearly always believe and assume that others will exploit, harm or deceive him, even if no evidence exists to support this expectation."

She said while it was normal for everyone to have some degree of paranoia about certain situations, if paranoid personality disorder takes this to an extreme, a person can go to any extent to get rid of the suffering caused by their thoughts.

"With unwarranted fear and suspicion, they may perceive an attack on themselves or on the ones they love. Something like this must be going on in Parshuram's mind before he indulged in such an act of killing his three children and his wife and finally set himself on fire," she said. Stating that such person should take the help of experts, she said, "Trained counsellors can guide an individual to find out his/her own abilities, capabilities and potential to cope with disturbed situations, " she added.

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