In one of the most bizarre incidents you will ever see, 11 members of a family were found hanging inside their own house in a possible mass suicide. The horrifying incident took place in Sant Nagar, North Delhi on Sunday morning and has grabbed a plethora of eyeballs.
Despite the previous post-mortem report claiming the deaths to be a result of ligature hanging, we now have a shocking twist to the story with an upgraded version of the autopsy.
What happened?
- While 10 out of the 11 members were found hanging, the eldest member of the family, Narayani Bhatia, 77, was found lying on the floor in another room with ligature marks around her neck.
- According to NDTV, the other bodies found were of Narayan Devi’s two sons Bhavnesh (50) and Lalit (45), her daughters-in-law Savita (48) and Teena (42), her daughter Pratibha (57), her grandchildren Priyanka (33), Nitu (25), Monu (23), Dhruv (15) and Shivam (15).
How did it happen?
- All of them used chunnis (scarves) with religious motifs and cables to hang themselves. Their ears had cotton buds stuffed in them while their hands were tied and eyes, blindfolded.
Handwritten notes found
- What adds to the creepiness of the incident, is the diary that has been found in the house. The diary had detailed instructions throwing light on how ‘hangings’ should be carried out and reveals the families intention to attend mass salvation.
It is also evident, that the bodies of the deceased had a strong similarity with the notes in the diary in case of how they lips were taped or the hands were tied. The police are now trying to use the steps jotted down by the Bhatia family, who ran a shop, to find out the exact reason behind the deaths.
How were the deaths discovered?
- As per a TOI report, the deaths were discovered by Gurcharan Singh, a retired train locomotive driver when her wife noticed that the shop owned by the Bhatia’s was closed and had a fair amount of customers waiting for it to open. Gurcharan went inside and saw the main door open with the family hanging in the hallway. Speaking of the incident, he said,
“The Bhatia brothers had recently started a dairy business from their general store and used to open their shop at 5.30am. Today, however, my wife noticed that the shop hadn’t opened till 7am and many customers had lined up outside. I went in to check and found the main door unlocked. The entire family was hanging in the hallway.”
However, the family dog was the only one found alive in the house who was sent to the terrace.
The autopsy report
- The autopsy, which was conducted on six bodies on Sunday night had confirmed ligature hanging as the cause of death for all six bodies and there is no sign of any scuffle or strangulation.
- However, according to India.com, a liquid chemical substance has now been found in the bodies of five out of the six examined.
The relatives suspect foul play
- According to IndiaTv, a few members of the family have completely dismissed the religious angle suspected by the Police. A relative of the family claimed that they were educated people and not superstitious. Ketan Nagpal, whose grandmother was one of the deceased, stated that they were killed.
The hunt for ‘Baba Janegadi’
- The Delhi Police have begun a manhunt for ‘tantrik’ Baba Janegadi after finding links to the case. According to India.com, investigators got to know about him after they received the sub-district magistrate reports, which contained statements of relatives and friends of the family.
The bodies will be handed over to the family for the last rites today. While the Delhi Police Crime Branch continue their hunt for the truth, the case is one of the most freakish in recent times.