Angry father's failed suicide bid kills 13-month-old son

An angry father's failed suicide bid claimed the life of his 13-month-old son in Ahmedabad on Monday night.

After an argument with his wife Vyapti, Mehul Patel, 35, headed with his son Om to a railway track under a flyover to commit suicide. But the approaching train made him change his mind.

"Patel reached the railway track at around 8:30 pm. He placed the child on the track and lay down beside him (with the intention of commiting suicide). After two minutes, a goods train neared the track and Patel suddenly got up and started running away," VK Zala, a police inspector, told the Ahmedabad reporter of the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) newspaper.

Patel and Vyapti, both divorcees, had married in October 2009. Om was born in 2010.

Patel's alleged demands for further dowry, despite owning a stake in his family's dairy business, had triggered the quarrel between husband and wife that led to their son's death, a police officer said.

When Mehul and her son did not return home on Monday night, Vyapti told her relatives who launched a frantic search.

On finally hearing of her child's death, a shattered Vyapti filed a complaint of murder against her missing husband.