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A 44-year-old man was arrested for allegedly pushing his ailing, wheelchair-bound mother in front of an approaching train at Manavur railway station in Tiruvallur district near Chennai on Tuesday, August 18. The woman, identified as 71-year-old S Padmavathi, died on the spot.
The incident was initially treated as a train-hit case. However, railway personnel grew suspicious after finding a wheelchair near the tracks. They examined CCTV footage from the station, which allegedly showed Padmavathi being pushed onto the tracks by her son, S Parthasarathy.
The Arakkonam Government Railway Police subsequently traced and arrested Parthasarathy, a contract employee at the Heavy Vehicles Factory in Avadi. He was booked for murder and remanded in judicial custody.
According to police, Parthasarathy had taken his mother to Manavur railway station in a wheelchair on Tuesday evening. Around 7 pm, as the Yelagiri Express approached the station, he allegedly pushed her and the wheelchair onto the tracks before fleeing the spot, The Times of India reported.
Police said Padmavathi had been seriously ill and was unable to speak. She was reportedly suffering from neurofibromatosis, a condition that can cause tumours or lumps to develop in the body.
Padmavathi was living with Parthasarathy and her eldest son at their house in Manavur. She had three sons. Her eldest son was unmarried and unwell, while her second son was married and lived separately near Padi. Parthasarathy, the youngest, was married and had two daughters but was estranged from his wife and children.
According to the police, Parthasarathy had been struggling to care for his mother and his elder brother, both of whom required assistance. He was also facing financial difficulties and had a strained relationship with his wife and children.
Parthasarathy who is an alcoholic, would regularly buy liquor using his mother’s pension money.
According to The Hindu, Parthasarathy was allegedly in an inebriated state when he asked his mother for money to buy alcohol. When she refused, he reportedly became enraged and pushed her onto the railway tracks, killing her.
The Arakkonam Railway Police, who were alerted to the incident, sent Padmavathi’s body to Tiruvallur Government Hospital for a post-mortem examination and arrested Parthasarathy.
