"Why is papa not speaking?": 4-Yr-Old Girl Cremates 74-Yr-Old Father In Uttar Pradesh's Meerut

The elderly couple had become parents through IVF after their married son and daughter passed away due to illness. The girl cremated her father today but could not understand as to what was happening.

Meerut: In a tragic incident, a four-year-old girl lit the funeral pyre of her 74-year-old father, while repeatedly asking as to what had happened to her beloved 'papa' and why he was no longer speaking to her. Nobody around could muster the courage to tell her the truth.

Devendra Tyagi, a resident of Shastri Nagar, who had retired from the Sales Tax Department and his wife fell lonely after the death of their married son and daughter and decided to opt for IVF to take their family ahead. Following which, the woman gave birth to a girl four years ago.

The couple's son, Rahul (36) died due to brain hemorrhage in 2018 and a month later their daughter Prachi (39) also died of illness. They left behind two children. The elderly couple's daughter-in-law and son-in-law started living at their house to take care of them.

According to Devendra's brother-in-law Rajiv, after a few days, the couple's daughter-in-law and son-in-law fell in love with each other and gradually distanced themselves from the couple and started living together at some other place.

At the age of 66, Devendra's wife Madhu gave birth to a daughter through IVF. With Devendra's death, Madhu is now left with her four-year-old daughter, Rajiv said.

On Monday, when relatives started taking Devendra's body for the last rites, the girl kept asking as to where they were taking her father and why he was not speaking to her. Since there was no one else in the family, the relatives made the girl cremate her father.

Thus, the girl carried out the last rites of her father without understanding as to what she was doing and why. She just kept asking the relatives about her father. The relatives and neighbours who had gathered at the cremation ground did not understand as to what explanation they should give to satisfy the girl's curiosity.

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