Family members and relatives mourn the deaths of 13-year-old Ayush and seven-year-old Aahaan in Budaun on March 20, 2024. (PTI)
On Tuesday evening, 10-year-old Piyush Singh became the sole eyewitness to the brutal murder of his brothers Ayush (13) and Aahaan (7) allegedly at the hands of 22-year-old Sajid, a barber who had recently opened a salon opposite the boys’ home
Ten-year-old Piyush has more questions than answers for everyone, including his distraught parents. And one question follows the grief in waves – “why did the salon waale bhaiyya do this to us?”
Forty-eight hours earlier, he became the sole eyewitness to the brutal murder of his brothers Ayush (13) and Aahaan (7) allegedly at the hands of 22-year-old Sajid, a barber who had recently opened a salon opposite the boys’ home.
On Tuesday evening, Sajid and his brother Javed entered the boys’ home and asked to see their father Vinod Singh, a contractor by profession. When Singh’s wife told them that her husband was not at home, the duo asked her for a cup of tea. As she went to the kitchen to prepare the tea, Sajid reportedly took the boys to the terrace where he allegedly attacked them with an axe.
While Ayush and Aahaan succumbed to the vicious attack, Piyush managed to escape and raise alarm. While their mother rushed to the terrace and saw her two sons lying dead in a pool of blood, neighbours and locals gathered to try and catch Sajid but he and his brother had fled by then. As communal tensions arose in the area, Sajid was eventually traced to the nearby forest where the police said he opened fire and was killed in return fire. Javed is currently in police custody.
“Piyush hasn’t eaten anything since then. He is also not talking to us. He has gone silent,” said Piyush’s father Vinod Kumar.
Amid questions of why Sajid bhaiyya killed his brothers, Piyush manages to say: “I want my brothers back.”
Punctuated by long bouts of shocked silence, the 10-year-old managed to describe the moments preceding the crime. He said he was playing with his brothers when Sajid and Javed came. “We knew them since bhaiyya used to give us a good haircut. All three of us were very familiar with them. They never misbehaved with us. They used to ask us about our father’s wellbeing each time we visited their salon,” Piyush told News18.
But, that day, they seemed different, Piyush added.
“We were playing when they came in and asked my mother for a cup of tea. My mother went into the kitchen. Javed asked the three of us to take him to the terrace where he asked me for a glass of water. When I returned, I saw him slitting my youngest brother Aahaan’s throat, while my eldest brother Ayush was lying in a pool of blood.”
“I dropped the glass of water. On hearing me, he pounced on me and attacked me with a knife, but I somehow escaped. I raised an alarm and ran downstairs after which my mother, too, raised an alarm and the duo ran outside,” said Piyush.
The police, however, said it was Sajid who murdered the boys. Sajid was gunned down in an encounter three hours after the murders. Javed surrendered before Bareilly police on Thursday.
According to psychologists, children who witness such gruesome events are at the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
“PTSD symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. The stress disorder symptoms may start within one month of a traumatic event, but sometimes symptoms may not appear until years after the event. These symptoms cause significant problems in social or work situations and in relationships. They can also interfere with your ability to go about your normal daily tasks,” Dr Manini Srivastava, assistant professor at Department of Psychology, University of Lucknow, told News18.