Bhubaneswar: On a day when people across Odisha celebrated Raja Parba, the festival that celebrates womanhood, death of five girls in two separate incidents brought into question the condition of women in Odia society.
While a man in the northern Keonjhar district killed his three minor daughters before committing suicide, two minor girls, both siblings, committed suicide allegedly to escape a trafficking bid by their own father in the coastal Ganjam district.
Residents of Ulibasa village in Anandpur block of Keonjhar district were aghast to find the blood-stained bodies of three girls inside the house and the hanging body of their father, Durga Sidhu, a tribal man.
The three girls, aged between six and nine, were allegedly thrashed with a bamboo stick by their father causing a head injury, a police said.
Locals said Sidhu had been taking care of his three daughters after his wife’s death, but could have killed his daughters due to mental illness. However, police are yet to ascertain the exact reason behind the horrific incident.
In another incident, two sisters committed suicide by consuming poison reportedly to escape the trafficking bid by their own father at Kabisuryanagar in Ganjam district.
The two girls, aged 17 and 11, consumed rat poison after learning that their father, Padmanabha Bhuiyan, was planning to hand them over to a man for a few thousands of rupees. The neighbours took the two sisters to a nearby hospital, but they died during treatment.
Bhuiyan’s wife died a few years ago following which he married another woman. He returned from Surat where he used to work a few days ago, a local resident said.
After learning the death of the two girls, locals launched an attack on the man before handing him over to police.
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