Two arrested for killing five of Ferozepur family

 Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, March 26

With the arrest of two persons, the Ferozepur police today claimed to have unravelled the mystery behind the sensational murder of five members of a family that took place in Talwandi Bhai a few days ago. The accused had also murdered the lone survivor of the family, a girl, whose body is yet to be recovered.

A case in this regard was lodged at the Ghal Khurd police station in this border district on March 20.

Earlier, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had taken up the matter with his Punjab counterpart to expedite the investigation into the case as all victims hailed from Purnia district of Bihar where the incident had created a lot of unrest. 

Giving details, Ferozepur SSP Hardyal Singh Mann said on March 19, Vishwananth, a resident of Talwandi, had informed the police about foul smell emanating from the residence of Banke Bihari, whose wife and daughter, who worked as domestic help at his place, had not reported for work for several days. 

Acting on the information, the police went to Bihari’s residence and broke open the door only to find five decomposed bodies lying in the compound.  The victims were identified as Banke Bihari, his wife Rani, sons Kundan and Nandu and daughter-in-law Lalita, all of whom had been murdered by slitting their throats.  The SSP said the accused were identified as Wakeel Singh and Jaspreet Singh, adding that they were cousins. 

He said Bihari’s younger son Kundan had eve-teased Wakeel’s sister some time ago and the latter wanted to take revenge. “Wakeel befriended Bihari’s daughter Baby and started having illicit relation with her,” said the SSP, adding that the accused also started frequenting Bihari’s house. Later, he persuaded Baby to give some intoxicant to all the family members on the day of tragedy so that both of them could run away and get married. Wakeel had also cautioned Bihari that since there was some evil spirit in their house, he would treat it with some chemical. 

The SSP said on the fateful night, after Baby gave pills to all family members, the duo came to their house and eliminated all of them. They took Baby along to Mata Chintpurni in Himachal Pradesh the next morning. Later, when they ran out of money, they thought the matter would have been settled by now and decided to return to their place. 

On the way, they murdered Baby also and threw the body in a canal near Harike. 

Mann said the weapons used in the crime had been recovered and efforts were on to retrieve Baby’s body. 

Earlier, the bodies of all victims had been sent to their native village Purnia by the district administration at the instance of the Bihar CM.