They wrested the weapon from their father's hands and killed him
In the Ambagarh area of Chhattisgarh, two teenage daughters ended years of documented domestic violence by killing their alcoholic father during a confrontation in which he threatened their mother's life. The law, swift and categorical, has charged them with murder — yet the case quietly asks what justice means when children are forced to become protectors, and when the systems designed to shield the vulnerable arrive too late. It is a story as old as human suffering: the moment desperation and survival converge, and the machinery of order must decide whether it can hold both truth and law at once.
- Years of alcohol-fueled beatings had made violence the household's unwilling rhythm — until one Wednesday night, it reached a point of no return.
- When their father seized an axe and turned it on their mother, the two daughters made a split-second choice that transformed victims into defendants.
- Police arrived to find a dead man and two minors who spoke not of rage, but of rescue — yet the charges filed were for murder, not survival.
- The case now sits inside a legal system that processes homicide as homicide, struggling to accommodate the moral weight of children who had no other door to walk through.
- Rajnandgaon district, already shadowed by a separate case of prolonged child sexual abuse, is confronting a pattern: families fractured from within, and institutions that intervene only after the damage is irreversible.
On a Wednesday night in Rajnandgaon district, Chhattisgarh, two teenage daughters killed their father, Sahdev Netam, 45, with an axe. He had come home drunk — as he had countless times before — and the violence that followed was familiar to everyone in the household. What was not familiar was how it ended.
Netam's pattern was well established: alcohol, then rage, then his wife and children absorbing the consequences. Police would later confirm what the family had long endured — years of beatings, years of terror, a home shaped by the anticipation of his next return. On this particular night, he escalated further, seizing an axe during a confrontation with his wife. His daughters intervened, wrested the weapon away, and in the struggle, killed him.
When questioned, the girls described not a moment of vengeance but one of desperation — they believed their mother would die if they did not act. The legal system received their account and responded with murder charges. The body went for autopsy. The girls went into custody. The case entered the criminal justice machinery as a homicide.
The incident arrives alongside another case in nearby Dongargarh, where a stepfather was arrested for three years of sexual abuse against his 12-year-old stepdaughter — reported, finally, by her older sister. Two households, two forms of violence, two families broken by those who were meant to protect them.
What lingers is the question the law has not yet answered: when children kill an abuser to protect a parent, does the context of their desperation count? The girls face murder charges. Their mother is alive. And the distance between those two facts is where the harder reckoning lives.
On a Wednesday night in the Ambagarh area of Rajnandgaon district, in the state of Chhattisgarh, two teenage daughters made a choice that would reshape their family's trajectory and land them in police custody. Their father, a 45-year-old man named Sahdev Netam, was drunk again—a condition that had become the rhythm of their household for years. When he grew violent that evening, as he had done countless times before, his daughters acted. They took an axe and killed him.
The family's history was one of sustained brutality. Netam had built a pattern of behavior around his drinking: he would return home intoxicated, and then the abuse would begin. His wife bore the weight of his rage. His children learned to flinch. Police records would later document what the family already knew—that he beat them, that he terrorized them, that alcohol had become the fuel for his violence.
On the night in question, Netam's behavior escalated beyond the familiar threshold. During a confrontation with his wife, he seized an axe. In that moment, with their mother's life appearing to hang in the balance, the two daughters intervened. They wrested the weapon from their father's hands and, in the struggle, killed him. When police arrived and took the girls in for questioning, they described years of torment. They explained that they had acted to save their mother's life.
The legal response was swift and unambiguous. Police booked the two minors under murder charges. They were placed in custody. The body was sent for autopsy. The case entered the criminal justice system as a homicide, not as a tragedy born from desperation or as an act of protection—though the girls' account suggested both.
The incident did not occur in isolation. Rajnandgaon district had recently confronted another case of family violence that revealed how deeply abuse had penetrated the region. In the nearby town of Dongargarh, a 31-year-old stepfather had been arrested after sexually abusing his 12-year-old stepdaughter for three years. The girl's older sister had reported him to police, and he was charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. Two separate households, two different forms of violence, two families fractured by the people meant to protect them.
The case of Netam's daughters raises questions that extend beyond the immediate facts. When minors kill an abuser in their home, does the law recognize the context of their desperation? Can self-defense be claimed by children protecting a parent? What obligations do systems have to intervene before violence reaches a fatal point? The girls face murder charges. Their father is dead. Their mother survives. And the legal machinery grinds forward, processing the case as it would any other.
Notable Quotes
They had suffered years of torture at the hands of their father and that he tried to kill their mother with an axe— Police account of what the daughters told authorities during questioning
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did the police charge them with murder rather than recognize what happened as self-defense?
Because the law often doesn't distinguish between killing in the moment of immediate threat and killing in the context of sustained abuse. The daughters were minors acting to protect their mother, but the charge sheet doesn't always account for that desperation.
Did the girls have any other options? Could they have called for help?
That's the harder question. In households where abuse is the baseline, where it happens regularly, the idea of "calling for help" assumes systems are listening and will respond. These girls had lived with this for years. On that night, they made a choice they thought was necessary.
What happens to them now?
They're in police custody facing murder charges. The case will move through the courts. Whether a judge sees their actions as criminal or as the desperate act of children trying to survive—that's what the legal process will determine.
Is there a pattern here in this district?
The article mentions another case just before this one—a stepfather sexually abusing a child for years in the same region. It suggests that Rajnandgaon has a problem with family violence that the system hasn't managed to contain before it becomes fatal or catastrophic.
What would have prevented this?
Earlier intervention. If someone had reported Netam's drinking and violence years ago, if there had been consequences, if the family had access to shelter or protection—any of those things might have changed the trajectory. Instead, the violence continued until the daughters felt they had no choice.