The Hindu : New Delhi News : Man offers father’s head to deity

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Saturday, Mar 15, 2008
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New Delhi

Man offers father’s head to deity

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: In a bizarre case, a young man allegedly chopped off his elderly father’s head and thumbs and offered them to a deity in a temple at Nabi Karim here to propitiate the gods. The accused, Jitender, has been arrested.

The police received a complaint from some residents of Nabi Karim on Thursday evening that Jitender had vandalised the local temple. He was arrested following the complaint. On Friday morning, when his sister came to visit her father Kartar Singh, a retired Indian Railways employee, she was shocked to find his headless body lying in a pool of blood in the house.

Supernatural powers

The matter was reported to the police and Jitender, who was already in police custody on charges of vandalism, was questioned. During interrogation, he purportedly confessed to having killed his father to appease the gods and acquire supernatural powers. His father’s severed head and thumbs were subsequently recovered from the temple. “He is mentally unsound and did not interact much with his neighbours. His mental condition worsened after his wife abandoned him a couple of years ago. Later his mother too died and he had been living with his father ever since. But the murder has come as an utter shock to us. He did not show any signs of nervousness when the police went to arrest him for vandalising the temple,” said a close relative of the accused on condition of anonymity. A senior police officer said: “We have arrested Jitender and he has confessed to having killed his father to acquire supernatural powers. The head of his father has been recovered from the temple and we are looking for the weapon of murder.”

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