Bengaluru: A 30-year-old man killed his two sons, aged 5 and 4, to avenge his wife over a marital dispute, in Bheereshwaranagar under Subramanyapura police limits on Wednesday.

Their mother, Jyothi, found her two sons, Shiva Shankar (5) and Adhitya (4), dead in her husband’s house. While Shiva appeared to have been bludgeoned with a blunt object on his head, Adhitya has been strangled to death, the police said. The father of the children, Sathish Kumar, has gone missing, the police said.

Sathish and Jyothi fell in love and got married around six years ago. They settled down in the city about five years ago. Sathish, a plumber, is from Humnabad in Bidar, while Jyothi hails from Kanakapura and works as a maid in the neighbourhood.

Sathish, an alcoholic, quarreled frequently with his wife over trivial issues. On Tuesday evening, the couple fought over some issue and Jyothi left for her mother’s house, which is nearby, along with her two sons. On Wednesday morning, Jyothi’s sister Meena, who too lives with their mother, dropped off the two boys at a creche nearby as was their routine, the police said.

Around 8.45 am, Sathish went to the creche and took his sons to his house on the Burial Ground Road in Bheereshwaranagar. There, he killed them and fled the spot.

Meena, who got to know from the nursery that Sathish had taken the two boys home, informed Jyothi, who rushed to her husband’s house after her work around 1 pm and found her sons’ bodies. She immediately rushed them to a hospital with the help of her sister and neighbours but both were declared brought dead.

The distraught mother was inconsolable near the hospital. A senior police officer said, “The murders could have taken place anytime between 8.45 am and 1 pm. It looks like the husband committed the crime to avenge his wife over a domestic row that was accumulating over a period of time with the two sons bearing the brunt.”

Dog squad and forensic science teams collected evidences from the spot.The bodies of the children were then shifted to KIMS Hospital for the postmortem. Subramanyapura police have registered a case of murders and are on the hunt for Sathish.