Former Congress parliamentarian Siricilla Rajaiah along with his wife and son has been arrested by the Warangal Police.
Former Congress parliamentarian Siricilla Rajaiah, his wife and son have been arrested by the Warangal Police for allegedly abetting the suicide of his daughter-in-law and three young grandsons. They have been remanded to jail for 15 days.
Yesterday morning, the charred bodies of the former lawmaker's daughter-in-law Sarika and her sons, Abhinav, 7, and two-year-old twins Ayan and Sriyan, were found on the first floor of their home in Telangana's Warangal after a fire broke out reportedly because of a gas leak.
Hours later, Mr Rajaiah, 62, his wife Madhavi and son Anil - the dead woman's husband - were taken away by the police for questioning.
At the time of incident, Mr Rajaiah and his son Anil were on the top floor of the same house where Sarika and three children burnt to death. They did not report hearing any screams or sounds, even though Mr Rajaiah had returned late night after preparing for campaigning. He was to file nomination papers as the Congress candidate for Warangal by poll on Wednesday, for election on November 21.
Sarika, a former IBM employee, had allegedly attempted suicide in March last year. She had also filed a case of harassment and protested outside her father-in-law's house with her children.
Sarika and Anil met in engineering college and married in 2002. The marriage was reportedly strained over Sarika's allegations that her husband was having an affair.
In a police complaint last year and also in mails written to her advocate, Sarika had said she was being mentally, physically and financially harassed.