Washington: Former Indian shot putter Iqbal Singh Boparai has been charged with double murder in the US, after he admitted to killing his wife and mother, according to media reports.
The 62-year-old 1983 Asian Athletics Championship bronze medallist from Delaware called the police on Sunday morning to admit his crime. When the police arrived at his house, at Newtown Township, they found him soaked in blood, suffering from self-inflicted stab wounds. Inside there were bodies of two dead women.
Singh’s mother, Nasib Kaur, was lying on the first floor with her throat slit. Singh’s wife, Jaspal Kaur, was found upstairs, similarly wounded. Both women were declared dead at the scene, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
The bronze medal at Kuwait in 1983 was the biggest achievement in Singh’s sporting career before he moved to the US. Currently, he works as a cab driver in there. The motive of the murder is still unclear.
“At this point, there’s been no previous criminal contact with this individual and so the mystery of why this happened is still a mystery,” CBS Local quoted Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer.
A chilling phone call between Singh and his son brought the responding officers to his home. “I killed both of them. I killed your mother and grandmother. Call the police to come to get me,” he told his son over the phone.
“He then talked to his daughter, who was with her brother and told her the same story. That’s when law enforcement was contacted, they arrived and they found Mr Singh covered in blood, injured. But they also found the two deceased individuals in the home,” Stollsteimer said.
According to reports, Singh has been taken to an area hospital for the treatment of self-inflicted injuries and is under police custody.
