Software engr’s wife throws infant son in well, kills herself too

Nagpur: Thirty-two-year-old Prajakta Deshmukh, who committed suicide after throwing her eight-month-old son Sarvesh into a well at a playing ground in Swamidham Nagar in Ghogli on Saturday evening, was booked by Hudkeshwar police station for murder on Sunday. Prajakta also jumped into the well after throwing in Sarvesh, police said. No suicide note was found. The reason behind this extreme step is not clear yet.
Prajakta married 34-year-old Atul, a software engineer, a few years back. The couple shifted to the US. Prajakta and her children came to India to visit her parents’ house in Amravati a month ago as her father was unwell, said cops. Atul, who hails from Bhandara, arrived in India on August 11. Prajakta and Atul came to Atul’s sister’s place at Ghogli a week ago.
Prajakta told her sister-in-law that she was going to buy rakhi and she took her son with her. At the time, Atul had taken daughter Arnavi and his nephew to an exhibition. However, she did not return home. The family members had also registered a missing person complaint. The matter came to fore when locals saw the floating body along with a diaper in the well on Sunday. Family members reached the spot and fished out the bodies with the help of local divers.
Cops said the well was covered with an iron net and it was almost impossible to for two persons to jump together. Prajakta may have thrown Sarvesh through the gap in the net and later jumped into the well herself, they added. “As per the recorded statement of Prajakta’s family members, she was suffering some medical problem and ended her life as she was depressed,” said zone IV DCP G Sreedhar. Hudkeshwar cops, however, refused to provide information related to the family.