A 36-year-old farm labourer has been arrested in Vinchhiya village of Sanand taluka in Gujarat's Ahmedabad district for allegedly killing his 10-year-old son at the altar of Jogani Mata in the courtyard of the family's home on Sunday, November 1, police said. The child is not being named, in line with child-safety norms.
Source: Nation Press (FIR-based report)
According to the First Information Report (FIR), the accused, Nareshbhai Patel, allegedly held his son by the legs and slammed him against the altar two to three times at around 7 pm before hitting him on the head with a stick, causing fatal injuries. The allegations in the FIR have not been tested in court.
The boy's mother had been living with her parents in Sanand for about 10 days after a domestic dispute in which, she has alleged, her husband assaulted her; the boy had stayed back at the family home because his school examinations were approaching. Alerted by a neighbour on Sunday evening, she rushed home and found her son dead and her husband asleep on a cot beside the body. A Sanand police station team that reached the spot after a neighbour's alert also found the accused asleep, in blood-stained clothes, according to the report.
Source: TezzBuzz (complaint-based report)
According to the FIR, when his wife confronted him, the accused said he had killed the boy to ensure that nobody else in the family becomes a 'bhuva' - a ritual spirit medium believed to channel deities. Police records describe Patel as a farm labourer who had inherited the village bhuvo role from his own father and had come to resent the generations-old tradition.
The Ahmedabad Rural Police registered a murder case under Section 103(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and arrested Patel within hours of the incident, police said. Forensic evidence has been collected from the scene for examination.
Officials said the accused did not appear to be in a stable mental state at the time of his arrest and that a psychological evaluation would be conducted. The investigation is ongoing, and further details are expected after the forensic and psychological assessments are completed.