Man kills 4-yr-old son, attempts suicide over mounting debts

While the boy Madhav, an LKG student in a private school in Gopalapuram, died on the way to the hospital, his father Urmil Dolia is undergoing treatment at a private hospital. 

Police said Urmil Dolia, a resident of Teynampet, had taken MR Cellphones, a service centre on PT Rajan Salai in KK Nagar, on lease from Mohammed Yusuf. On Friday evening, Dolia asked his staff to shut the shop early and left for home. 

Around 9 pm, he went out with his second son Madhav, informing his wife Kalaiselvi that they were going for shopping. He left his mobile phone in the house. When they failed to return till 11 pm, Kalaiselvi called one the service centre employees, Vasanth, from Dolia’s phone. 

Vasanth and another staff reached the shop and found Dolia’s bike parked outside. Inside, they found Dolia and Madhav in a pool of blood in the toilet. 

Police personnel on patrol alerted the 108-ambulance service and rushed the two to the hospital. But Madhav was declared brought dead, while Urmil Dolia was admitted to ICU. 

After preliminary inquiry, police said that Urmil suffered losses in business due to his prolonged illness. Unable to repay the mounting debt, he decided to end his life. As he was very close to Madhav, he wanted to “take” his son with him, police added. 

“He slit the child’s wrist with a sharp knife and then cut his left wrist,” said an officer. Based on Kalaiselvi’s complaint, Vadapalani police have registered a case and are investigating. The couple has another son Pranav (14), a Class 9 student. 

Originally hailing from Gujarat, Dolia was born and brought up in Chennai as his parents had shifted to the city decades ago. While his relatives live in Royapettah, the couple live in their apartment in Teynampet. After Dolia’s first marriage ended in divorce, he met Kalaiselvi when he was working in a private firm and married her.  Kalaiselvai is said to be working in an IT firm.

While Urmil Dolia told police that losses in his business drove him to consider ending his life, Mohammed Yusuf, from whom Dolia acquired the shop, said the latter made more money than before. “He was the manager under whom there were five service centres. When we recently started leasing out the shops, he acquired the centres in KK Nagar and T Nagar. For the last one month he couldn’t visit the shop after contracting chickenpox. Last week, he told me that he would go to work from Monday,” said Yusuf. According to him, Dolia was a hard worker and business-oriented, who used to speak to him regularly. “It remains a puzzle why he attempted suicide. I don’t think it is because of the business,” added Yusuf.