A young man shot his mother and sister dead on Thursday allegedly for not cooking tasty food in Karnataka's Uttara Kannada district. The incident took place on Wednesday, October 13, and the accused, Manjunath Haslar (24), was arrested on Thursday. The deceased have been identified as Manjunath's mother Parvathi Narayana Haslar (42) and sister Ramya Narayana Haslar (19). The police said that Manjunath, who was an alcoholic, got into an argument with his mother over the sambar that she had prepared, saying that it was not tasty enough. He also opposed his mother's plan to buy a phone for his sister Ramya by taking a loan.
Parvathi had reportedly told Manjunath that he was not in a position to tell her whether or not to buy the phone for his sister. At this point, an enraged Manjunath shot her with a country-made gun that was lying at home, police said, adding that he later, also shot his sister. The incident came to light after the accused's father returned home and lodged a complaint with the police against his son.
Incidentally, this is not the first time such an incident has come to light where a drunk man has fatally harmed his own family. In April this year, six people including four children had died in a similar incident in Kodagu’s Ponnampet. In that incident, Yeravara Bhoja, aged around 50 years was identified as the accused. Bhoja, an estate labourer, had frequent fights with his wife Babi, following which she had left home and had been staying at her brother Yeravara Manju's house in the same village. Police said his wife did not want him to stay with them due to domestic violence induced by his alcoholism.
Unhappy with this, he locked the house where his wife was staying from outside in the wee hours of morning and set it on fire.