CHENNAI: A 28-year-old engineering gold medalist stabbed his father to death in a fit of rage at their house in Adambakkam, hired an auto and boarded the vehicle along with his mother asking the driver to take them to Madras High Court. On the way, he borrowed the auto driver's phone and called his elder brother to inform him that he murdered their father. The auto driver, who had seen blood stains in the young man's clothes, and overheard the conversation drove them straight to the nearest police station.
According to the police, the young man and his 60-year-old mother are people with psychiatric disabilities. The suspect's 68-year-old father was involved in real estate business.
On Monday, when the father brought breakfast from a hotel, the son refused to eat it and stopped his mother from doing so as well. Accusing the father of poisoning the food, he stormed out of the house to buy food on his own. On his return, an argument broke out between him and his father during which he allegedly stabbed his father multiple times with a pair of scissors following which the latter died, police said.
Youth called brother from auto driver’s phone
He later took his mother, who was reportedly unable to process what was happening due to her illness, and boarded an auto rickshaw, asking the driver to take them to the Madras High Court. On the way, he borrowed the driver’s phone to call his elder brother and inform him about the murder. Overhearing the conversation and noticing the blood stains in his clothes, the auto driver, took the two to the nearest police station.
Meanwhile, the elder brother, who lived a few streets away, rushed to his father’s home and found him lying in a pool of blood. The man was taken to a nearby hospital and later referred to the Chromepet Government Hospital, where the doctors declared him dead.
Though the jurisdictional police officers TNIE spoke to said that the unemployed youth was struggling with psychiatric disabilities for the past few years, it is, however, unclear whether he was subjected to a psychiatric examination by a competent professional before he was sent for judicial remand.
“As of now we have remanded the accused. His family did not have any physical record of his medical history. During the course of the investigation, we can send him for a mental health check up and take necessary steps from there,” a senior police officer said.
A senior psychiatrist from a government hospital in Chennai said if the police suspected the accused to be suffering from mental illness, they should have made the judicial magistrate aware of their concerns. The magistrate could then decide to sent him to a healthcare facility for examination.