I don’t care what happens to my husband, I don’t care if he’s killed walking down the street, says motherIt was a gut-wrenching tragedy that engulfed a neighbourhood in K P Agrahara on Monday morning. The bodies of two children wrapped in white cloth lay side by side outside a small house in 10th cross, Bhuvaneshwarinagar.Their mother, grief-stricken and sobbing, refused to believe it was her husband of 11 years who had allegedly murdered their children in cold blood by stabbing and asphyxiating them due to sheer frustration that he was not able to pay their school fees and cope with mounting expenses.“Just give me my children back. I don’t care what happens to my husband, I don’t care if he’s killed walking down the street, I just want my children back,” she wailed.Shocked relatives, neighbours and locals were gathered in hundreds to pay their last respects to the tiny tots and give their family strength. All of six and nine years old, Pavan Kumar and Sinchana were allegedly brutally murdered by their father, Shivakumar, 37, on Saturday afternoon, when their mother, Thayamma, 27, was away at work.Pavan was a student of class three, while his sister was in the first standard. Both were enrolled in Shubha High School on Magadi Road.Natives of Chamarajnagar, Shivakumar, who works in a bag shop in Chikpete, married Thayamma in 2005. The latter worked as a domestic maid for houses in and around the area, but the couple was reportedly hard up for money and would have the occasional quarrel about it.A fortnight ago, Thayamma reportedly reminded Shivakumar that the new academic year would begin soon and that they needed to pay up the children’s school fees.This is said to have led to another argument between the two, with Thayamma saying the family was struggling and she was unhappy. This must have triggered sheer frustration in Shivakumar’s mind, leading him to mull over getting rid of his children once and for all. Though reports suggested he was mentally unstable, police refuted the claims, stating he was of sound mind.“He took about a week to think about what he could do to address the problem, and must have come up with murder as the only solution. The couple left home around 9 am on Saturday for work, but Shivakumar returned a few hours later. The children were playing at home, and he took a rope, tied up their hands and legs, and stabbed them with all sorts of sharp objects on their necks, stomachs, faces, hands, and legs,” said a police official.There were seven-eight wounds, especially on his daughter’s abdomen, close to each other. He then stuffed the children’s mouths with cloth and dumped their bodies into a gunny sack, which he dumped in a drain a few hundred metres away from his first-floor house.He then reportedly took Rs 200 from his older brother claiming he was setting off to Dharmastala, and made his way to Murudeshwara hill. Around 6 pm, when Thayamma returned, she found the children missing and called Shivakumar. The latter is said to have lied that the children had run away to Murudeshwara and he had gone there in pursuit.By Sunday, friends and family joined in the search for the children, but in vain. Shivakumar reportedly called Thayamma and then confessed that he had murdered the children and thrown their bodies into the gutter near their house.“It was around 11.30 pm, just when we were planning to call off the search, that someone spotted a human head inside a gunny bag. We reeled it in and found both children’s bodies. A team of police had rushed to Murudeshwara hill by then and arrested Shivakumar, who confessed to the murders,” the official added.Like all their other relatives, Thayamma was initially reportedly in denial over her husband’s actions, claiming he cared for the children a lot. “We had always seen him treating the children well, hugging them, and holding their hands while walking. He was mentally fine, and did not even have any vices. We are in complete shock over the incident,” said a neighbour who did not wish to be named.The KP Agrahara police have registered a case of murder, and further investigations are on.