Police found charred bodies of Radha and her daughter Sonia from their residence at Rabari Vaas near Thakkarnagar in Naroda on Wednesday around 9 am. A case of accidental death has been registered and Radha has been booked posthumously on charges of the toddler's murder.

Radha’s husband, Pancham (25), police said, used to work at a diamond polishing unit in Thakkarnagar until about three months ago, before it was shut down because of the ongoing meltdown.

“Pancham had recently started working as a welder on a daily wage basis, but he had no money to look after his family. In fact, nothing was cooked in the house for the past two days,” said P J

Pagi, the Naroda police sub-inspector.

The alleged suicide took place when Pancham was out on work. “Radha bolted the house door from inside and set herself, along with Sonia, afire after

dousing themselves with kerosene in the house,” said Pagi.

Meanwhile, bodies of the mother-daughter duo have been sent for postmortem and the police are waiting for the reports to ascertain the actual cause of the deaths.

This is the fourth incident of suicide reported from the jobless diamond workers’ fraternity in the state since January 11. Two of them committed suicide in Saurashtra while one took the extreme step in Surat during this period.

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