PUNE: A 38-year-old software engineer from Chandannagar was arrested late Friday afternoon on charges of killing his three-and-a-half-year-old son by slitting the child’s throat with a knife over frequent disputes with his wife.
“Prima facie investigation revealed the techie, Madhava Sadhurao Tiketi, an MTech degree holder from IIIT Bengaluru and a native of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, would frequently quarrel with his wife, Swaroopa (30), over domestic issues,” senior inspector Seema Dhakane told TOI.
Tiketi was working with a software company in Magarpatta City but lost his job about two months ago. Swaroopa, a BTech degree holder, is a homemaker, police said. Since Tiketi lost his job, the couple have been surviving on their savings. They have been living in Chandannagar since 2016.
Deputy commissioner of police (Zone IV) Himmat Jadhav told TOI, “Around 12.30pm on Thursday, Tiketi left his residence at Ratan Prestige apartments in Sant Tukaramnagar along with his son, Himmat, on his motorcycle. However, he had not returned home even till 2am on Friday. His wife then approached the police to lodge a missing person’s complaint.”
“A police team used his cellphone number to trace him and realised that his location was at Ila Stay lodge in Wadgaon Sheri. The team went there and found that Tiketi was in one of the rooms. They called him, but when he did not open the door, the police broke into the room and found him in a heavily inebriated condition. He was brought to the police station,” Jadhav said.
Himmat was not with him, so the police questioned him over the next few hours. But his replies were evasive. “He finally gave up under some intense grilling and admitted to having killed his son by slitting his throat,” the DCP said.
He led police to an isolated area surrounded by bushes near Forest Park area in a lane opposite Kharadi bypass dargah, where the boy’s body and the murder weapon were recovered, police said.
Tiketi told police that after leaving home, he rode around aimlessly for some time before buying the knife, Dettol and a lollipop at a shop. He then went to the isolated area. “It took him a single swipe to slit open his son’s throat and kill him,” Jadhav said.
He then went back to the shop in his blood-stained clothes and bought a new outfit before proceeding to the lodge where he consumed liquor and slept, Jadhav said.
“The place where Tiketi killed his son is not covered by any CCTV cameras nor was he seen by any witness but the shopkeeper has identified and recorded his statement,” he said. “We have recovered the murder weapon, and the bike used in the crime and sent the body to Sassoon General Hospital.”
