Woman throws 5 children in well in Guj; 4 of them drown

Battling poverty, a woman allegedly threw her five children into a well, leading to the death of four of them, before she herself jumped into it in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district, police said Tuesday.

The woman and one of her children survived in the incident which took place Monday night at Panchpipla village in Bhavnagar, an official at Alang police station said.

The woman appeared mentally disturbed and claimed "she saw ghosts whenever she closed her eyes," he said.

Gitaben Bhalia (40) left her home at Royal village in Bhavnagar Monday evening after telling her husband Dharamsinh Bhalia that she was taking her five children to visit a temple at the nearby Panchpipla village, he said.

After reaching Panchpipla, located around 170 km from here, she threw her five children into the well and then herself jumped into it, he said.

Four of the children - a daughter and three sons aged between 1.5 and 7 years - drowned, while the woman and her eldest daughter, aged 8, survived, the official said.

Some villagers raised an alarm and called the police Monday night after which the bodies were fished out from the well, he said.

The woman was arrested and booked under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder), the official said.

He said during interrogation, the woman, whose husband is a farm labourer, mentioned that she was fed up with life as she was unable to look after her children due to poverty.

She also suffered from weak eyesight which compounded her problems, he said.