A daily wage labourer and his wife killed each other with sharp weapons in their house at Bisrampur village, around 30km from the steel city, in the small hours of Tuesday.

The two baby daughters of the couple, whom the father had also attacked, are in hospital with injuries to the head.

The village is under the Seraikela police station area in the adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan district.

The children, 5-year-old Anita and 3-year-old Sunita, were admitted at the MGM Medical College Hospital by relatives. The husband and wife, Rajiv Tiu, 42, and Budhni, 37, were taken to the same hospital around 5am and declared brought dead. Police have recovered two bloodstained weapons.

“Initial probe suggests that Rajiv Tiu was mentally disturbed and had assaulted his wife with a chopper and later started assaulting the kids,” said Seraikela police station officer in-charge Naveen Prakash Pandey. “Though there was no other eyewitness than the two injured children, it is assumed that on seeing her husband trying to kill the kids also, the wife must have attacked him.”

The neighbours had rushed to Tiu's house on hearing the commotion, the OC said. They broke open the door to find Rajiv and Budhni in a pool of blood and the children writhing in pain beside them.

Amit Tiu, nephew of Rajiv, said his uncle had become mentally deranged.

“We all had gone to uncle’s house and broke open the door after hearing the commotion and screams of the children. No one saw who attacked whom first but as the uncle was mentally deranged, we assume he must have attacked our aunt first and later was killed by her for trying to murder the two children,” Amit said.

The children sustained head injuries and were in a state of shock, hospital sources said.