Unemployed youth murders parents to claim insurance

Lily

B.R
Staff member
Patna: A jobless youth in Bihar tied his septuagenarian parents to a tent-pin and brutally killed them by pouring acid on them on Tuesday night.

The youth intended to claim money from his dead parents' insurance policy in what the police say is a growing tendency among unemployed youths to kill their working or retired parents for jobs and money.

The shocking incident occurred at Gaura-Purani Bazar under Teghra police station in Bihar's Begusarai district, barely 140km from the state capital, Patna.

Police said the accused Mritunjay Jha, 30, had been torturing his mother Tara Devi to get her insurance money since she retired from the job as a teacher.

His father Nageshwar Jha too was opposed to his son's demands.

As a result the youth tied them to a tent-pin — used to tie cattle — in his house and killed them by pouring acid on them. His mother had only just retired from the government service and she had reportedly received heavy amount as retired benefits and maturity of insurance policies.

"During the investigation, the accused revealed he killed his parents to grab their retirement benefits and insurance money. We have arrested the youth," a local police offer Ramdular Prasad said yesterday.

The state has witnessed an alarming rise in the killing of working or retired parents by their jobless youths in recent months which has puzzled investigating agencies as well as social scientists.

Last year itself, the state reported as many as six such incidents, five alone from Munger, an eastern Bihar district, where the unemployment youths allegedly killed their working fathers to claim their government jobs on compassionate ground.

All the victims here were employed with the Indian railways.

Uncovering of trend

The trend began to be revealed when local police arrested two suspects during routine anti-crime operations. But the suspects said they had been hired by frustrated, unemployed youths for between 60,000 and 100,000 rupees to kill their fathers who held a government job.

Government jobs offer full job security.

Police said the killers confessed to having gunned down two railway employees, Mahendra Mandal and Sanjay Vishnu Raut, aged 52 and 55. The average retirement age for government employees is 58.

The police said the youths were killing their fathers for three reasons: to collect cash compensation, a pension for their mothers, and a job on compassionate grounds.

"It's this desire for job which compels the unemployed youths to commit heinous crime," a police officer said. He added that such killings were now destroying the pious relations between the children and fathers in the society.

 
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