Occult believers kill daughters in bizarre ritual

A well educated couple allegedly killed their two daughters in their 20s at Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. Police suspect the family had apparently been following certain occult practices for some time now.

Amaravati: In a bizarre incident, a highly educated couple, had allegedly killed their two daughters in their 20s at Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, hoping that they would come back to life within hours due to spiritual power as the Kali Yuga ends, turning into the Satya Yuga, police said on Monday.

In fact, the man himself was said to have called one of his colleagues over the phone soon after the incident on Sunday night and disclosed the killings. The shocked colleague immediately tipped off the police, who rushed to the couple's house and found them in a trance.

Police suspect that the family had apparently been following certain occult practices for some time now. According to Madanapalle Deputy Superintendent of Police Ravi Manoharachari, it was the mother who bludgeoned the daughters to death. "One of the daughters was tonsured before she was killed," he said.

The man remained a spectator as his wife went about the alleged killings. The younger daughter was first killed with a trident. Then, the elder one was bludgeoned with a dumbbell. Police sources said that the couple had actually planned to kill themselves as well to prove that they would come back alive but the timely entry of police personnel averted the possible suicide.

V Purushottam Naidu, M.Sc, PhD, worked as an associate professor in the Government Women's Degree College in Madanapalle. He was also the College Vice-Principal. His wife Padmaja, a post-graduate and gold medalist, was Correspondent and Principal of a local private school.

The eldest daughter Aleikhya (27) was doing her post-graduation in Bhopal while the youngest Sai Divya (22) was a ward in the KM Music Conservatory of A R Rahman. The daughters were staying with their parents since the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

According to the DSP, the family apparently "transcended the peaks of spiritualism," going by their interaction. "They asked us to wait for a day as their daughters will come back to life again," he said. Manoharachari said that the family was well-educated but wondered why they resorted to such an act.

Police have detained the couple in their house and started questioning while forensic teams were examining the closed-circuit television footage to establish if someone else were also involved in the spiritual rituals practised by the family. Bodies of the deceased have been removed for post-mortem while police launched a full-scale investigation into the case.