The Hindu : New Delhi News : Man kills wife, daughter, son, himself

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 17, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Man kills wife, daughter, son, himself

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 16. In a tragic tale most bizarre, a 57-year-old senior laboratory assistant of Delhi University's Ramjas College poisoned his wife, daughter and son before committing suicide himself by taking poison in his Gulabi Bagh house in North Delhi on Wednesday. He was apparently fed up with his son's mental illness.

The police said Gurdeep Singh Sachdeva, an assistant in the Chemistry Department of Ramjas College and a resident of DDA Flats in Gulabi Bagh, was found by his neighbour lying on the floor in his house with froth oozing from his mouth around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The neighbour alerted his nephew, Vicky, who lived on the first floor. The latter took Gurdeep Singh to Sunder Lal Jain Hospital where he was declared brought dead.

A suicide note purportedly recovered from his person said that he had killed his wife, Rita, in his house at Gulabi Bagh and that the body of his 23-year-old daughter, Rachna, was lying in a bed box at the Ramjas College staff quarters in which he had been living for the past six years. He also mentioned that he had buried his 25-year-old son, Gagan, in the front lawn of the Ramjas College staff quarters.

In fact, some people from the staff quarters had complained to the police about a foul smell emanating from Sachdeva's house. A police team went to the spot and recovered the bodies of Rachna and Gagan from the places mentioned in the suicide note. Their mother Rita's body, wrapped under several layers of quilts and mattresses, was recovered from the Gulabi Bagh house.

In the suicide note, Gurdeep said he was fed up with his son's quirky behaviour. Gagan, who was into extreme forms of "bhakti" and insisted on living with dogs, used to maltreat his father. Gurdeep's colleagues told mediapersons that his son had met with an accident while returning home about four years ago after which he lost his mental balance and never recovered.

The news of the entire family being wiped out left Gurdeep's relatives and friends shocked. "I had tea with him in his quarters on Tuesday afternoon and there were no signs of anything being amiss," said Surinder, his colleague. Gurdeep's sister-in-law, Meena, said she spoke to Gurdeep over the telephone around 11-30 on Wednesday morning. "He told me that he was going to Bharatpur in Rajasthan where his son had died. By around 3 p.m., I found that he was no more," she said.

The police suspect that Gurdeep administered poison to his children and wife probably a couple of days ago and then took poison himself on Wednesday.

However, the timings of the deaths and the cause would be ascertained only after post-mortem, they said. The decomposed condition of the bodies suggested that the three were killed a couple of days ago, they added.

While most of his colleagues and neighbours said that Gurdeep was a helpful man, some claimed that he might have run into some financial problems owing to his involvements in chit funds. He had bought the Gulabi Bagh house recently.

Meanwhile, a case has been registered at the Gulabi Bagh police station and further investigations are on.

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