Hyderabad, April 10 A 29-year-old man, who is alleged to have murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters by pushing them into a swimming pool in the Hanumakonda district of Telangana, was arrested on Friday, police said.
The man allegedly committed this crime on April 1 so that he could marry a minor girl, who is his relative, in order to have a male child, they added.
Nine other suspects, including his family members, a doctor, and a nurse, were also arrested because the deceased woman had allegedly been subjected to two abortions in the past, despite her strong objections, after illegally confirming that the fetus was female, police said.
The nine other accused arrested include the man's parents, brother, a doctor, a nurse, a lab technician, and other individuals who assisted in illegally determining the sex of the fetus and forcing the abortion.
Two other doctors—one who performed the abortion and another who performed the sex-determination test—are still at large, police said.
According to police, the man, pretending to offer ice cream, took his wife (26 years old) and their daughters to a swimming pool and allegedly pushed the woman first, followed by the children, into the pool. All three drowned.
Police further said that the man fell in love with a minor girl, a relative. However, as he was already married, the girl initially rejected his proposals.
He subsequently coerced her into agreeing to marry him by threatening to kill her if she refused. Convinced that the minor girl would continue to reject his love because he already had a wife and children, the man resolved to eliminate them, the police said.
Subsequently, when his wife became pregnant again in March this year, he and his parents quarrelled with her, pressuring her to undergo an abortion out of fear that she might give birth to a girl child again.
However, as she refused to undergo the abortion despite their repeated insistence, the man resolved to kill both her and the children so that he could marry again and have a male child, police said.
Explaining the details of the incident, police said that after all the customers at the swimming pool had left, he switched off the lights and disconnected the CCTV at the pool premises and later picked up his wife and two daughters in his car, and drove them to the swimming pool.
He then asked his wife to come to the edge of the pool to assist him in removing a "dummy cap" located inside. As soon as she approached, he firmly grabbed her left hand, dragged her toward the pool, and pushed her into the water, they said.
Subsequently, he picked up his two daughters and threw them into the middle of the pool. As they struggled to get out of the water, the man jumped into the pool himself and, using both hands, held them submerged—preventing them from rising to the surface—until they drowned, according to a police release.
After the three died, they were pulled out of the swimming pool and laid on its edge. The man then checked to see if their hearts were still beating; upon confirming that they were dead, he waited for some time, reasoning that it would give suspicion—before calling his parents and younger brother, it said.
He then informed them that, while he went out for urinals, his wife and the children had accidentally fallen into the pool and drowned, Warangal Police Commissioner Sunpreet Singh said.