It was a chilling case of planned murder, with a property dispute as the motive. The victims—Snehalata, aged 98, and her daughter Sairendri, aged 62—were murdered by suffocation, then staged to look like a tragic fire accident. However, what they didn’t anticipate was the swift response of the police.
On Thursday, a 58-year-old man, Jagannath Dixit, and his 29-year-old son, Sanket, were arrested for allegedly killing the two women at their home in Hatapada, Sambalpur. The father-son duo reportedly suffocated Snehalata and Sairendri on Tuesday night and later attempted to disguise their deaths as a kitchen fire.
“The motive behind the crime was a property dispute,” explained Tophan Bag, the Sadar sub-divisional police officer. “Both victims were suffocated, and Sairendri’s body was set on fire to cover up the murder,” he added.
The police swiftly cracked the case, leading to the arrest of Jagannath and his son Sanket. The tragic events serve as a grim reminder of the lengths people might go to in pursuit of material gain.