Kendrapara, March 5: Poverty allegedly drove a mother of three children to poison herself and her youngest daughter to death at Rangani village near Bhitarkanika wildlife sanctuary in Rajnagar yesterday night.

Laxmi Mandal, 34, the wife of Deepak Mandal, killed her five-year-old daughter Rita by getting her to consume poison.

Later, Laxmi killed herself by consuming the same.

Deepak was not in the house when the incident took place. However, their other two children — an 11-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter — were in the house.

A local resident said Laxmi’s husband did not own any land. He used to work in the farms of other people in order to support his family. With his meagre income, homemaker Laxmi found it increasingly difficult to maintain the five-member family.

Earlier, Deepak used to work as a member of the crew in a fishing trawler.

However, the unfortunate man was rendered jobless last month when forest officials seized the trawler on the charge of illegally fishing within the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary limits during a ban because of the Olive Ridley turtles.

Every year, the state government enforces prohibition on sea fishing within Gahirmatha marine sanctuary limits from November 1 to May 31 to protect the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles, which come here in the thousands to lay eggs.

“The family was undergoing financial hardship. The deceased’s spouse had borrowed some money from villagers, which he was unable to repay,” said Rahash Mandal, a villager.

“Poverty might have been the reason that led Laxmi to commit suicide and kill her daughter. We are investigating to ascertain the exact cause of the incident.

“An unnatural death case has been registered in this connection. We have seized a poison bottle from near the bodies. The bodies of the deceased were sent to the district government hospital for autopsy,” said sub-divisional police officer Nrusinhga Charan Swain.