Nagpur student kills parents; dispute over repeated failure in engineering course likely cause

Special Correspondent

NewsBits.in

NAGPUR: New Year 2025 brought in shockwaves for Nagpur residents as the body of a middle-aged couple was recovered from their home and their son was arrested for the double murder the youth allegedly committed.

The bodies of Aruna and Leeladhar Dakhole were found in separate rooms of their New Khasala home near Kamptee Road, after the neighbours complained of foul smell from the residence.

The son, 25-year-old Utkarsh was arrested for the double homicide after inconsistencies were found in his statements, police said. The murders were committed allegedly on December 26.

Police sources said that after the murder, Utkarsh had met his sister who was on her way back from college, mid-way and taken her to their native village saying that their parents had suddenly decided to go to Bengaluru to attend a meditation camp.

Sources said that the reason of the ghastly murders was an ongoing dispute between the Dakhole couple and Utkarsh regarding the latter’s repeated failure in engineering course. The parents had been repeatedly asking Utkarsh to give up engineering and shift to vocational courses or take up farming at their native village.

A day before the murder, Aruna Dakhole had reportedly started to pack up Utkarsh’s belongings in a bid to send him to the native village, sources added.

The youth strangled his mother on the afternoon of December 26 when the two were alone and left the body in the first floor bedroom. He then went on to watch television.

When his father Leeladhar, a technician with Koradi Power Plant, returned from attending a funeral, Utkarsh stabbed him and reportedly asked him whether he (the father) still wanted him to discontinue engineering. Leeladhar reportedly said he would still insist but wanted to discuss the matter with Utkarsh and asked him to call his mother for the same, despite being injured, sources said. Utkarsh then told his father that he had already killed Aruna and then stabbed him repeatedly and fatally, police sources added.

Utkarsh then reportedly typed a suicide on his father’s mobile phone, saved it as wallpaper, switched off the gadget’s location and took it with him. He then tried to put it in the house when the police called him to the house following discovery of the body, sources further added.

The incident once again puts focus on the issue of parental pressure, need of balanced dialogue within family regarding such issues as well as on lack of awareness on mental health issues.