Woman Throws Daughters Into Well, Kills Self After Mother-In-Law Snatches Away Her Phone

A woman in India allegedly threw her two daughters into a well and then killed herself after her mother-in-law reportedly took away her phone.

The woman lived with her husband, daughters and mother-in-law in the state of Madhya Pradesh. On Saturday, the woman, identified as 25-year-old Rani Yadav, and her mother-in-law got into an argument over the former’s excessive cellphone usage. The woman’s husband was not at home when the argument took place, News Track reported.

Following the argument, the mother-in-law snatched away her phone and kept it with her. This angered Yadav, who left her home the next morning with her young daughters. She allegedly took them to a nearby well and threw them into it. The woman then killed herself by hanging from a snare in the well.

A passerby noticed this and called the nearby residents, who managed to rescue one of the daughters, who had gotten trapped among the bricks of the well. They then called the police, who arrived at the scene and pronounced the woman and her other daughter dead.

"The woman died along with her 10-year-old daughter, while a four-year-old survived after getting stuck among the bricks of the well. The woman had gone out to feed her cattle. We have initial information that she had a fight with her mother-in-law on Saturday over a mobile phone. However, all angles are being probed," police officer Shashank Jain told news agency Press Trust of India.

In a similar incident last month, a woman in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh killed three of her four daughters by throwing them into a pond following an argument with her husband. After the argument, the woman packed all her belongings and left her residence with her four children. She then threw the girls into a nearby pond and fled the scene. The villagers heard the screams of one of the girls and managed to rescue her. The accused was eventually traced and taken into custody on murder charges.