Elderly couple attacked in their village home in Prayagraj, 1 dead

An elderly man was bludgeoned to death and his seriously injured at their house at Judapur Dandu village under Soraon police station in trans-Ganga area of the district on Tuesday morning.

Police suspects that the duo was attacked on Monday night. Their house was ransacked and the almirah and chest were found broken, suggesting that the attackers came to loot.

The injured woman has been admitted to the hospital and an FIR registered against unidentified miscreants, police said.

Prem Prakash Mishra, (63), and his wife Neerja Devi, (60), lived in Judapur Dandu village, close to the main road. Prem’s three sons live in Lucknow, Gorakhpur and Prayagraj while the elderly couple lived alone in the village.

On Tuesday morning, Prem’s neighbor Amaresh Mishra had gone to pluck flowers from the bushes outside his house and grew suspicious when he found the main door of the elderly couple’s house open. He went in and saw the couple lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He raised an alarm. After this, the villagers rushed to the spot and informed the police.

While Prem, whose body bore deep injury marks that were apparently caused by blunt objects, had died by that time, his badly injured wife was rushed to a private hospital in an unconscious state.

Like Prem, who had deep injury marks on face and other parts of the body, Neerja’s body too had similar marks, police said. SSP-Prayagraj Shailesh Kumar Pandey reached the crime scene and sniffer dogs were also brought there to assist in the investigations.

“Once she regains consciousness, we will speak to the injured woman about the incident,” officials said.

The Prayagraj SSP said circumstantial evidence suggested miscreants barged inside the house with loot motive and attacked the aged couple on finding them awake.

“Prem’s son has registered an FIR against unidentified miscreants and now all angles are being looked into,” he added.