Pregnant woman & 3 kids stabbed to death in Araria

PATNA: A 30-year-old pregnant woman and her three minor children, including a girl, were stabbed to death in Araria district late Thursday night.
The incident took place when Tabassum and her children — Sameer (8), Sabir (6) and Alia (3) — were sleeping in their house at Madhopara under the Bairgachhi police outpost in Araria district.
The criminals entered the room through a damaged window of the house and attacked the victims when Tabassum’s husband Mohammad Alam, a marginal farmer by profession, had gone to attend the call of nature.The marauders escaped.
On his return, Alam saw the family members lying in a pool of blood and raised an alarm. The locals rushed to the spot and the police were informed.
Police said prima facie land dispute appeared to be the reason behind the crime. DIG (Purnia range) Rajesh Tripathi said a dog squad was pressed into service to trace the criminals involved in the crime.
“I have asked the SP concerned to ascertain the role of Alam, who coincidentally had gone outside when the incident happened. The case will be probed from different angles,” the DIG told this newspaper over phone on Friday.
Senior police officers, including SP Dhurat Sayli Savlaram and SDPO K D Singh, reached the spot. Alam apprehended the involvement of Mohammad Arif and his associates Zainuddin, Alam and Naushad in the incident.
Alam told the police that he had an old dispute with Arif over a plot of land. The court of the LRDC had disposed of a complaint case in his favour a couple of days ago, which might have prompted the rival group to commit the crime, he added.
Preliminary investigation suggested that the two rival groups were engaged in legal battle for five years. The station house officer of Bairgachhi police outpost, Kundan Kumar, said two suspects had already been detained for interrogation.
The police also recovered the bloodstained knife from a house with the help of the dog squad. “The suspects are being quizzed by senior police officers,” he said.
The incident has shocked the residents. “We are shocked the way the pregnant woman and her three siblings were murdered. The police should put the killers behind bars,” said Arshad Nizam, a local resident.
The SHO said the bodies were handed over to the relatives after postmortem. A posse of armed police force were camping in the village as a precautionary measure as tension prevailed in the village.