In a sudden turn of events, a youth and his father committed suicide at their village in Alipurduar within the span of a few hours on Tuesday night.

Police recovered the bodies of Etwa Kheria, 60, and his son Ganga Kheria, 26, from Garokhuta village under the Samuktala police station of Alipurduar district and sent them for post-mortems.

Sources said Etwa Kheria, 60, a daily-wage earner, was a habitual drunkard who lived with his wife Pari, their younger son Ganga and a daughter. The elder son works in Tamil Nadu.

Every day, Etwa used to return home drunk and verbally abuse his family. Time and again, Ganga, also a daily labourer, asked his father to abstain from such misbehaviour, but the older man did not listen.

“Our son had even told him that he could no longer take it and would commit suicide,” Pari, Etwa’s wife, said.

Late on Tuesday evening, as Etwa reached home drunk and started misbehaving with his family, Ganga took a piece of rope and walked out of the home.

“After some time, some neighbours informed us that he had hanged himself from a tree around 500 metres from our house,” said the bereaved mother.

Along with others, Etwa also went to the spot where the tree stood. Seeing the body of his son hanging, he returned home and hanged himself.

“My husband was extremely upset to see our son dead and took his own life,” Pari said.

Ashim Majumdar, the officer-in-charge of Samuktala police station, called the two deaths "unfortunate" and said they had initiated a probe.