Mentally ill man hacks two kids to death

RANCHI - A mentally-challenged man hacked two children to death with an axe in Jharkhand’s Gumla district, police said Friday.

Sukiya Oraon, 28, killed his cousin’s two sons Thursday evening in Jhatanitoli village in Gumla, some 145 km from Ranchi, a police official said.

Sukiya had been behaving abnormally for the last few days and his wife had called an occult practitioner to treat him Thursday. After the so-called treatment, Sukiya turned violent, picked up an axe and left home.

He came across his cousin Dhuma’s two sons and hacked them to death. Of the victims, Sukhdeo was five years old and Budeshwar was two-and-a-half.

Sukiya attacked two more people but they managed to escape.

Villagers later caught him and handed him over to the police.