Tutor kills wife, three children in south Delhi’s Mehrauli

Accused admitted crime in two notes before attempting to take his own life

A 42-year-old private tutor allegedly killed his wife and three minor children before trying to take his own life in south Delhi’s Mehrauli area in the early hours of Saturday. The accused has been arrested, police said.

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The accused, Upendra Kumar Shukla, belonging to Bihar’s Champaran region and a resident of Mehrauli’s ward number 2, allegedly killed his wife Archana, daughter Ranya (8) and sons Raunak (6) and a month-old boy whom they used to fondly call Rani. They were found with their throats slit at the fourth-floor residence. The accused allegedly tried to slit his left wrist later.

The police have also recovered two notes, in English and Hindi, in which Upendra admitted to killing his family and said no one else is responsible for the murders.

Heard cries

Deepak Agarwal, who runs a grocery shop on the ground floor of the building, said around 6.30 a.m., a third-floor resident told him that he heard someone crying upstairs. The neighbours got together and broke open the door. Seeing the bodies, they called the police.

A senior police officer said they reached the spot by 7 a.m. and saw the bodies of Upendra wife’s on the floor and the three children on the bed. “Upendra was sitting on the bed with a stone cutter close to him. His mother-in-law Lalita Devi was crying,” he said, adding that Upendra’s clothes were bloodstained. The notes were marked as being written at 2.18 a.m.; investigators suspect the crime was committed around 2 a.m.

The Shukla family lives in a two-bedroom house. Upendra’s minor niece and nephew have been staying for the past year for their education, and his mother-in-law arrived about two-three months ago.

“Upendra and his family used to sleep in one room and his mother-in-law, niece and nephew in the other. When Upendra and his wife didn’t come out on Saturday morning, Ms. Lalita went to the room and saw blood coming out from inside. She started knocking but Upendra didn’t open the door, after which she started shouting,” the police officer said.

Upendra, a chemistry teacher who used to give private tuitions in Vasant Kunj, had graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru University in a language course years ago. The couple, married for nine years, had been living in Delhi for over seven years.