Man burns wife to death, kills her father before shooting himself

A relative of the 42-year-old man also suffered 20 per cent burn injuries and is undergoing treatment at a hospital.

The couple have two daughters and a son—all minors, and they were staying with their mother.

Superintendent of Police, Hamirpur, Deeksha Sharma said: “Around 4.00 am Sunday, our local police team got information that a man had set ablaze his wife and killed his father-in-law Nand Kishore before shooting himself. A police team reached the spot. The three bodies have been sent for postmortem and their reports are awaited.”

According to police, the 16-year-old daughter of the couple told them that a dispute had been going on between her parents for the last few months, and the mother had moved to the Rath area to stay with her maternal grandfather. She said that her father was paying Rs 5,000 per month to her mother for expenses, added police.

On Sunday morning, the police said, the man came to her in-law’s house and entered into an argument with his wife for not returning home. “The situation took an ugly turn when he suddenly poured kerosene on his wife and set her on fire… On hearing her cry for help, her father and the distant relative, who were sleeping in another room, came out. When the father-in-law scolded the man, he pushed him to the ground. The father-in-law suffered an injury on his head as his head hit a stone and died. Meanwhile, all three children ran outside the house and raised an alarm. In the meantime, the man took out a countrymade pistol which he was carrying and shot himself,” said a police officer involved in the probe.

The distant relative was there as he was asked to settle the dispute between the couple, said police.

The SP said that there were two witnesses —the distant relative and the couple’s 16-year-old daughter – in the incident. “The investigation is going on,” she added.