Chennai man kills self, wife, two sons due to debt: Police – Hindustan Times

A family of four, including a one-year-old child, were found dead inside their posh apartment in Chennai’s upscale Perungudi on Sunday.

Police said the 36-year-old man killed his wife and two children and he died by suicide. According to preliminary investigations, the cause of the crime was the man’s mounting debt.

“At least four money lenders showed up today at the apartment to whom he owed 80 lakh,” said the investigating officer in the case who did not wish to be named. “He seems to have promised to settle all the repayment on January 2.”

The Thoraipakkam police station have registered a case under section 174 (police to enquire and report on suicide) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

As the new year began, the facts of the tragic crime that have emerged so far in the case have shocked the surrounding community. The apartment also provides assisted living for senior citizens.

Money lenders and neighbours rang the bell several times on Sunday morning and since no one opened the door, they rang police control room. Cops and neighbours together attempted several times before they could open the main door.

They found the man hanging from a ceiling fan. His wife, 35, was lying dead with a deep injury on her head. “He had hit her with a cricket bat,” the officer quoted above said. “We don’t know how he killed his children. We are waiting for the post mortem reports.”

The children are two boys aged 1 and 10 years.

The bodies of all four have been sent to Chennai’s Royapettah Government Hospital. Police suspect the murders happened after Saturday evening. “The door was locked from inside so we don’t suspect any other foul play,” the police officer said.

The man and his family lived in a three-bedroom house for rent paying ₹35,000. The man had worked abroad at a Barclays Bank before returning to India. His native is Coimbatore district and he had been living in the Chennai apartment for a year. He had been working in a call centre in the city but recently has been out of a job, police said.