INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Grandpa Burns Self And 4-Year-Old Grandson In Murder-Suicide Nightmare

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 05:03 PST, Apr 14, 2015

Everything got to be too much for a grandfather in South Africa who ended up locking himself and his 4-year-old grandson in a car and setting it alight. According to Jujuthlal Jhawirpersad’s brother, Ishwarlall, a series of domestic crises pushed his brother over the edge.

According to police in Johannesburg, 64-year-old Jujuthlal phoned the parents of the 4-year-old child shortly before the incident, telling them what he intended to do.

EyeWitness News reports that the child, Shivan Maharaj, had been left in the care of a domestic worker and the grandfather in his home in Azaadville on the West Rand when his parents left for work that morning.

Residents in the area saw the car on fire on a stretch of open land in Azaadville, but despite attempts to extinguish the fire, the grandfather and grandson both died, according to police spokesperson, Kay Makhubela.

“Both of them were already burnt. We are investigating an inquest docket.”

Both bodies were burned beyond recognition inside Jujuthlal’s Toyota Camry. Residents in the close-knit community are devastated over the murder-suicide and are struggling to comprehend how this could have happened.

However, the grandfather’s brother, Ishwarlall, claims that his brother’s family were the cause of his breakdown, which led him to commit such a horrendous crime. There were apparently incidents of assault threats and verbal abuse from the family.

According to IOL, Jujuthlal’s family lived together with the boy, Shivan, in his house in the suburb. Apparently, much of the conflict between family members related to his wife, Indira, who is around 16 years younger than her husband. According to Ishwarlall, he had opened his home to the family and cared for Shivan when his parents were working.

It all became too much for Jujuthlal on Wednesday last week, and he apparently told his daughter and son-in-law that they must find somewhere else to live.

However, the couple said they would not leave Indira behind, and this is allegedly what caused Jujuthlal to snap. In his final words to Ishwarlall he said, “They took my wife, so I’ll take their son, I’ll make them suffer like they made me suffer.”

He told Iswarlall that he loved him and would pray for him and then left.

Shortly after this, Iswarlall received a phone call from his niece, asking if he knew where her father was. She said Jujuthlal was threatening to kill Shivan and himself in a murder-suicide pact.

Iswarlall said her niece told him her father said his car would be “burning near the Arc (sports center) and that there will be fun in Azaadville.”

Ishwarlall immediately rushed out to look for his brother and the child, but by the time he arrived on the scene, the car was already engulfed in flames in a murder-suicide situation.

“This was such a sad thing to have happened. All my brother wanted was love from his family.”

Ishwarlall believes his brother was drunk at the time of the incident, and that he used petrol to set the car alight.

According to one of Indira’s friends, who preferred to remain anonymous, the family had been having problems.

“The family have had many problems these past few months. Indira always called me when she had problems. She told me recently that her husband had been acting psychotic and that he had tried to stab her with a knife not long ago.”

She continued by saying that Jujuthlal had been battling with depression and that he had a bad alcohol problem and was becoming “a very jealous man”. It was unfortunate that the man’s problems led to a murder-suicide situation, killing himself and the young boy.

In other South African news, the Inquisitr reported that a 2-year-old boy is becoming a promising DJ.

[Image: Screengrab from EWN video]

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