ONGOLE: In a shocking incident that happened in Ongole city limits in the early hours of Tuesday, an old woman was burnt alive in her own house when her son reportedly lit the fire. According to the police and locals, A Venkata Ramanamma, 65, an elderly woman living in the Gaddalagunta-Ramalayam area, has two sons.
Her younger son A Venkata Narayana, 41, is a software techie and lives in Chennai. The elder son A Kishore Babu, 44, is living here with their mother.
He is reportedly a mentally unstable person as his marital life was disturbed, and he got separated from his wife and daughter just after two years of married life by taking a divorce. At present, he is working in a local shop.
The mother and son often quarrel over various small issues, as Kishore’s mental health was unsound.
On Tuesday, early hours at around 5.00 am, locals observed fire in the old tiled-roof house of Venkata Ramanamma, and initially they thought that it was a small fire lit by Kishore Babu in front of their house. But when they found an unusually big fire in the house, they hurriedly approached there and found Kishore Babu there, shouting for help.
When the locals tried to question him about his mother and how the fire broke out, he didn’t answer properly and just fled.
Meanwhile, the fire department staff arrived with the locals’ information and brought the flames under control within an hour.
But it was too late to rescue the old mother, and she was burnt alive in this fire accident. With the peculiar behaviour of Kishore Babu at the time of the incident, the locals assumed that he might have lit the house, and that’s why he fled away, they assumed.
Ongole 1-Town CI Nagaraju, along with the SI and Police staff, rushed to the spot, thoroughly inspected the area and inquired with the locals about the incident.
Later, they shifted the mortal remains of the deceased old woman to the Government hospital and registered a case.
“It is very unfortunate that an old mother was burnt alive this morning in the Gaddalagunta area. Though fire fighters reached there on time and brought the flames under control, the old lady was burnt alive in just a few minutes, as the house is an old tiled-roof house and turned into ashes as fire catches everything within no time. As per the locals’
information, the deceased old lady’s son is mentally unstable, and he is at large after this incident. We are investigating the case from all possible angles,” Nagaraju, Ongole 1-Town CI, told TNIE.