Ambition, superstition turned doc parents ‘killers’

But close friend Sarojbala did find her depressed. A month ago, Promila, along with younger son Piyush (12), visited her at her Shivaji Colony residence. “She kept crying and when I asked her why she looked depressed. She said some evil forces were troubling her. I asked her not to worry,” she recalls.

A few days later, Promila brought Abhishek, who stayed in Amritsar with his father Ashok Malik, to Rohtak for admission in a coaching institute. Ashok is a professor of Microbiology in a private medical college there.

On the afternoon of October 1, Sarojbala received nervous calls from both Promila and son Abhishek. “They kept saying that evil forces were at their house and that only a tantrik could help them,” she says.

When Sarojabala’s husband Jai Bhagwan Sharma, a local businessman, reached her residence with a priest, he saw Piyush bleeding profusely. Abhishek and Promila also had injury marks on their neck and wrist. He rushed them to the hospital and called the police.

Later, Piyush died of excessive bleeding resulting from “injury caused in large blood vessels”. Police say deep cuts on Piyush’s necks “couldn’t be made by three masked men” as claimed by the couple during preliminary interrogation. “We recovered three kitchen knives, hundreds of burnt cigarette butts, mustard and kerosene oil, incense sticks, matchbox and blood-stained syringes and needles, which is an evidence that tantrik rituals had been performed in the house,” said Haneef Quraishi, Superintendent of Police.

Quraishi added that some family member could be involved in the incident.

“We have interrogated the father and the family’s 14-year-old domestic help who revealed that the superstitious mother reportedly dreamt of a guru who advised her to transfuse the blood of Piyush to Abhishek in order to secure his admission in a medical college. He also directed her to spill oil and burn something to create smoke while the process was on,” he said.

Sarojbala says Promila believed in supernatural forces and often attended spiritual functions.

The police have arrested Ashok for criminal conspiracy, while Promila has been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Both Promila and Abhishek are undergoing treatment at the Department of Psychiatry, PGIMS. As for the lady doctor’s “dreams”, the doctors treating her call it “mental illness”.