Ahmedabad: In a gruesome incident in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat, a woman hurled her five children into a well before jumping in herself in a suicide bid on Monday evening. While the woman and her eldest daughter were rescued, four children died. The woman has been arrested and booked for murder.
A resident of Jhanjhmer village in Talaja taluka, Gitaben Bhaliya took her five children — two daughters and three sons — along with her on Monday evening, telling her husband that they were going to a temple. The woman, however, reached Paanch Pipla village a few kilometres away. She then pushed all her five children into the well before jumping in herself.
While Gitaben and her eldest daughter Dharmishtha were rescued, four other children — Akshita, Kuldeep, Kartik and Rudra — died. Akshita’s body was recovered late on Monday and those of the other children on Tuesday.
Gitaben, in her statement to the police, said her family tills a farm owned by someone else. She added that the family has not been able to earn enough money through farming and her eyesight had weakened, because of which she was not able to take proper care of the children. “When I close my eyes, I see ghosts and they seem to be beckoning me. I kept worrying what would happen to my children after I died,” she said in her statement.
Dharamshibhai Bhaliya, her husband, said, “She told me that she was visiting the Mataji temple located nearby and that’s why I agreed. I had no idea about what was in her mind.” Asked if financial crisis was the reason for her extreme step, Bhaliya said, “Yes, there were financial problems, but we were not going to bed hungry. There was enough to eat for everybody in the family.”
District administration officials along with the police and rescue personnel from Talaja rushed to the spot as soon as news of the incident spread. Police officials in Bhavnagar control room said the woman had been taken into custody and her statement was recorded. “She has been booked for murder and attempt to murder along with other sections of the IPC,” an official at the police control room added.
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