On Thursday, November 23, the Odisha Police arrested a 25-year-old man for killing his wife and daughter using a venomous Cobra snake on October 7. Initially, the deaths were declared suicide, however, with further investigation, the perfect murder plan of accused K Ganesh Patra was revealed.
The shocking incident unfolded in Adheigaon village in the Kabisurya Nagar police station precinct in the Ganjam district. K Ganesh Patra, the accused, was in a marital dispute with his 23-year-old wife K Basanti Patra. They married in 2020 and had a two-year-old daughter named Debasmita.
Accused Ganesh Patra obtained a SIM card in his father’s name on September 26. He used the SIM card to contact numerous snake charmers in his area to assist him in getting a deadly snake. The accused allegedly obtained a snake from a snake charmer while lying to him about his intention of using the reptile for “religious purposes.”
On October 6, he brought a cobra in a plastic jar and released it into the room where his wife and daughter were sleeping, while he then went to sleep in another room. Both were found dead with snake bites the next morning. The accused at around 5:45 am started screaming that his wife and daughter had died due to snakebite. The victims were taken to the Hinjlicut Government Hospital where they were pronounced dead.
A twist in the perfect murder plan
Everything was going perfectly as per accused Ganesh Patra’s plan and the police registered a case of unnatural death due to snakebite as the postmortem reports of the deceased duo confirmed death due to snakebite. However, a twist came in when victim Basanti Patra’s father Khalli Patra filed a complaint against his son-in-law accusing him of killing Basanti and her daughter. This prompted the police to investigate the murder angle.
Subsequently, the police examined the accused person’s call details record and found that the accused had contacted several snake charmers. It was revealed that the accused procured a monocled cobra from a snake charmer named Basanta Acharya. The police have said that the snake charmer was not implicated in the case being the sole witness, additionally, he was unaware of the accused person’s real motive behind getting the snake from him. The police, however, are examining if action can be taken against him under the forest laws.
Family dispute, revenge or Rs 8 lakh compensation: Why Ganesh Patra killed his wife and daughter?
Speaking about the motive behind the murders, Ganjam SP Jagmohan Meena said, “Their family feud, as well as the prospect of receiving Rs 8 lakh in government compensation that is Rs 4 lakh each for snakebite victims, may have pushed him to murder his wife and daughter.
Notably, a dowry harassment angle also emerged in the matter as it has been reported that the accused allegedly used to torture his wife for dowry who then filed a complaint against him in October last year. Subsequently, a case was registered against Ganesh Patra under section 498A (which deals with husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) of IPC.
The unusual circumstances of the deaths piqued the police’s attention. The snake bites were in the same spot on the mother’s and her daughter’s just above the ankle bone of the right leg. The police got the assistance of a snake expert, who noted that the snake’s presence in the same room after biting the two victims was unusual. The fact that the victims did not scream for help after being bitten was also odd, according to the expert. The cops are currently investigating whether or not they were sedated.
Meanwhile, the police have said that the arrested accused has admitted to having killed his wife and daughter.
Kerala man killed his wife with a cobra
The heinous double murder using a snake reminds of a similar case from Kerala’s Kollam district in 2020 wherein a man named P Suraj was convicted of murdering his wife by letting loose a cobra on her. Prima facie it appeared to be a case of accidental death, however, the victim’s family grew suspicious and her father approached the police. In a striking similarity with the Odisha case, a history of domestic violence and dowry harassment was unearthed during the investigation.
