HYDERABAD: A day after an 80-year-old was found to have been murdered and his body chopped into pieces by his son, the police on Monday said the victim may have been served food mixed with poison. A post-mortem report, which could confirm this suspicion, is awaited. Sutari Maruthi Kishan’s body, after being chopped, was stuffed into seven buckets and kept in his house in Malkajgiri.
Officials said Maruthi was killed on Friday evening, and his wife, son and daughter remained in the house after the murder, cooking and eating three meals a day, and having hot-water baths to keep the stench away from their bodies. Maruthi’s son Kishan chopped his body, and then went to a nearby store and bought seven plastic buckets and six air fresheners. The plastic buckets were used to store the senior citizen’s remains. Their house had five small rooms and a very small kitchen, the police said, adding that only one room had some sort of ventilation. It is learnt that Maruthi’s wife Gaya, son Kishan, and daughter Prafful exhibited abnormal behaviour.
Kishan, 39, a school dropout, was unemployed and dependent on his father for finances. This had reportedly led to frequent arguments between them. Early in 2018, he married a distant relative, but his wife left in about two months, after struggling to come to terms with the family’s demeanour. Prafful, on the other hand, recently completed her graduation, and was seeking admission at a university to complete her post-graduation via distance learning.
Though she had physical disabilities, she was well-versed in the usage of the internet and smartphones. In fact, her search history showed that even as her father’s chopped body was stored in the house, she used her phone to make Google searches about Pan-D and Dolo tablets. It is suspected that she felt giddy due to the presence of the rotting body, and hence, sought medication. Both Kishan and Prafful suffer from prolonged illness.
The police found that while Maruthi stayed in one room of the house, everyone else stayed in another. On Friday evening, while Kishan chopped Maruthi’s body, Gaya and Prafful sat in the next room. It is learnt that they were aware of the murder, and even heard abnormal sounds from the next room, but did not know that Kishan was chopping the body until they saw it a couple of hours later. After placing the remains in seven buckets, they kept them in the corner of a room, and then cleaned it with a floor cleaner and used an air freshener to remove the odour. They then went to bed after a bath and dinner.
The family never interacted with outsiders: Police
Maruthi’s wife Gaya, son Kishan, and daughter Prafful exhibited abnormal behaviour. They didn’t interact with anyone, not even with their neighbours, police said