Karimnagar: After killing his wife, he left his children and adopted a new partner

Karimnagar: While the local media celebrated their reunion with their father a few days ago, the lives of siblings Pooja (19) and Bunny (17) came back on track on Tuesday, with the duo forced to return to the orphanage where they had spent the last 14 years of their lives. Fate started playing its part in Pooja and Bunny’s lives in 2010 when their mother Sathamma was killed by their father Soma Saraiya during a quarrel between the two at their home in Venkateswarlapalli in Jammikunta mandal. The only eyewitness to the murder was Pooja, who was five years old at the time, and based on her evidence, the court held Saraiya guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Seeing the plight of the children, the then Jammikunta CI Sundaragi Srinivasa Rao had admitted them to Spandana orphanage in Jammikunta, where they had been living and pursuing their education for the last 14 years. Puja is now a degree student, while Bunny is pursuing intermediate. Life changed for them earlier this month, when Saraiya was released from jail on July 3, when the state government granted remission to 213 prisoners. On July 5, he reached the orphanage, where there was a happy reunion and they moved into a rented house in Jammikunta. On July 8, Saraiya said he had been summoned by the jail authorities and left for Hyderabad. The next day, he called the children and told them that he would stay in Hyderabad and marry another woman. Not just that. He also asked the children to remove his name from their Aadhaar cards and wherever his name was written in their certificates, as “there is no relationship between them”. Even before the children could respond, he disconnected the phone. Shocked by Saraiya’s action, the children returned to the orphanage on Wednesday, where they had been since their mother’s death.