BHOPAL: In a shocking early morning development in Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh, five brothers, aged between three to seven years were found dead in a open water well at a village in Sendhwa Rural area – 400 km from state capital Bhopal – on Wednesday.
While four of the siblings were born to one mother, the other one aged three years was their stepbrother.
The villagers spotted the five bodies in the well at around 6 am and immediately raised an alarm, after which the Sendhwa Rural police rushed to the spot in Chikhli village and seized the bodies of five minors for autopsy.
The open well sans any boundary is located around 1.5 km from the house of the five boys in Chikhli village. All five boys were children of a labourer Bhatar Singh, who has two wives Sungi Bai and Sunita. While four boys were born to first wife Sungi Bai, the youngest of the quintet is the son of Bhatar Singh’s second wife Sunita.
Importantly, since the incident came to light on Wednesday morning, both Bhatar Singh and first wife Sungi Bai are missing mysteriously, while second wife Sunita, owing to deep shock is not in a mental state to record her statements with the police.
“We’re waiting for autopsy findings to ascertain whether the boys have been strangulated and then dumped in the well, beaten to death before being thrown into well or some other cause of death,” Sendhwa Rural police station in-charge Dinesh Chouhan told The New Indian Express.
Investigations have revealed that Bhatar Singh, the father of the deceased boys worked as labourer in adjoining Maharashtra. Cops are probing all angles of the case, including possibility of some feud between Bhatar Singh and his two wives being behind the ghastly episode.
Meanwhile, coming to know about the incident, Antar Singh Arya, the local BJP MLA and minister in Shivraj Singh Chouhan government rushed to the village.