In Telangana’s Khammam, parents allegedly paid contract killers to get rid of their alcoholic son
Filicide,’ meaning a person who kills their child, is rarely used; for the occurrence is rare. There is even a saying in Hindi that a son can be a bad son (kapoot), but a mother cannot be bad (kumata). We are all familiar with patricide (killer of father), matricide (killer of mother), and parricide (killer of parents), but filicide rarely makes an appearance. It recently did in Telangana’s Khammam, where parents allegedly paid contract killers to get rid of their alcoholic son. A few aspects of the case make it very curious. First, it was a premeditated, carefully planned murder. A drunken person can create a lot of hell around him; they can drive everyone around them crazy. They can get violent, abusive, rude, obnoxious—and not just men. A recent video clip that went viral showed how an apparently drunk woman at Noida in Delhi’s vicinity hurled profanities at the security guards at a housing society. Even a decent person can get angry at the outbursts of a drunken person and attack them. In the instant case, however, the accused father happened to be a government school principal. In a country where teachers enjoy a reverential position (at least in theory), it is difficult to envisage a teacher hiring a hoodlum to knock off his own son. But that is what happened, according to the police. They have arrested Kshatriya Ram Singh and Rani Bai who have been remanded in judicial custody. Also in custody are four of the five alleged killers of Sai Ram.
The 26-year-old Sai Ram was a college dropout and without a job; he was strangled to death and his body dumped at Suryapet. In fact, it was his mother’s brother, Satyanarayana, who organised the murder. While more details of the case are awaited, it is quite clear that Sai Ram’s alcoholism and attendant issues transmogrified them to such an extent that his own parents decided to get rid of him—this despite the fact that he was their only son. What his parents and others allegedly did is unpardonable, but this case does make us ponder over the problems alcoholism can occasion. Unfortunately, it is not discussed as much as it deserves to be. Social and religious reform movements died in the last century with the advent of nationalism. The great leaders of the freedom movement assumed that national independence would take care of all the ills plaguing the nation; but that was not to be. From contemporary politicians, you are unlikely to expect anything other than the ‘remedy’ of prohibition—a remedy that is worse than the malady. The fact, however, is that addiction to alcohol, drugs, etc., is a complex issue; one cannot address it without involving a multi-pronged approach; the response has to be social, cultural, and political. But our political leaders are rarely interested in such real issues, busy as they are with peddling sentimentalism and populism.
