The Andhra Pradesh couple accused of killing their two daughters over a superstition was granted bail by a local court in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor. The court granted them bail with conditions as 90 days has elapsed since the case against them was registered.
Purushottam Naidu and his wife Padmaja, of Madanapalle town in Chittoor, had been arrested on charges of murdering their two daughters on January 24 this year. Naidu was a lecturer in a government women's degree college and his wife Padmaja, a maths teacher in a reputed IIT coaching school, committed the cold-blooded murders with the supposed belief that their daughters would be born again. The couple's elder daughter Alekhya (27) had completed a diploma in forest studies from Bhopal, while younger Sai Divya (22) was a BBA and a student at the AR Rahman Music School in Chennai.
Both of the girls’ bodies were found naked and one of the girls was bludgeoned with a dumbbell.
Padmaja, told police that it was her elder daughter, Alekhya, who killed the younger one, Sai Divya.
Then later, Alekhya convinced her parents to kill her so that she could reunite with Sai Divya's soul and bring her back as Kalyuga is ending and Satyuga is starting on Monday, the mother told the police.
The accused parents, who were found to be suffering from delusionsm were initially admitted for treatment at Ruia Hospital at Tirupati, before being shifted to the Visakhapatnam Mental Hospital.
They were shifted from Visakhpatnam back to the Madanapalle sub jail on March 29.
This is not for the first time that India is witnessing a similar incident. In 2019, based on a ‘God man’s’ advice, a science teacher and his family allegedly tried to sacrifice a three-year-old girl in Assam’s Udalguri district.
In another incident, in Kerala, Krishnan, who owned a rubber plantation, his wife Susheela and their children Arsha and Arjun went missing from Thodupuzha in 2018. Few days later, their bodies stacked in a pit behind their home was recovered. In a suspected witchcraft murder, police arrested Aneesh, the main accused who was trained in black magic. Aneesh was worried that his powers were not working and he feared that Krishnan, his teacher, would have taken it back. He was conspiring along with an accomplice Lijin for around six months to kill Krishnan to get back his powers.
