Insurance: Indian father "had daughters killed to collect insurance"
A Tamil newspaper in Malaysia, Makkal Osai, has carried a report that a villager in Lucknow province, India, has admitted that he killed two of his four daughters so as to claim the proceeds of life insurance policies.
It has long been suspected that some parents consider children a renewable resource to be used to finance the family's needs, even though the cost to those children may be severe abuse. But the case of a villager elevates that to new and horrible heights, if it is true. But it does have the ring of unpleasant likelihood about it.
It is reported that the villager had entered into a land deal that he could not afford. Under threats from the vendors, the villager decided he needed to do something drastic.
So he offered IR50,000 (about GBP700) plus his motorcycle to his neighbour so that he could claim the insurance money of IR2 million per daughter: about GBP22,000 in total.
The neighbour took the girls to a river, then pushed them in as a result of which they drowned, says the newspaper, which had its publishing licence suspended for a month in 2007 for publishing a drawing depicting Christ holding a cigarette.
We have not been able to independently verify the story.
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