Yashaswani Chauhan, Pune
In Vasant Kunj, a residential area of New Delhi, a man and his four daughters were found dead in their house. The police suspect that it could have been a case of suicide involving the whole family, or a murder of the father by his daughters, or the other way round.
The father, 46-year-old Heeralal Sharma who had worked as a carpenter at ISIC, was last seen on 24th September bearing a bag assumed to be having sweets. It was the same day neighbors said they last saw the family alive.
New footage obtained from a CCTV camera shows Sharma walking towards his home that evening, and police believe he might have bought sweets containing poison. The charred remains were found days later after neighbors raised the alarm with stench from the third-floor flat. The body was examined and it was determined that there was no external dripping of blood but some aspects raised eyebrows, these included packets of pesticide and a box of sweets.
According to the news, Sharma’s daughters, a 26-year-old, 24-year-old, 23-year-old, and 20-year-old, all seem to be differently-abled with one of them being visually impaired. Neighbors said the family is very hermetic, rarely leaving their home, especially after the wife died from cancer in August. Sharma has been emotionally disturbed since her passing, according to the report, he, however, resigned from his job in January to augment the family’s challenges.
Police authorities are currently considering financial burdens, and even possible psychological problems, as a possible motivation for the murders. Such findings supported poison consumption since it was reported another investigator found blood stains around Sharma’s mouth area. There was also a probable murder weapon, a bottle of some odd liquid that the family had probably ingested by all five of them.
Neighbors said Sharma’s relatives who are also from India lived nearby but the families had not been in contact over the last few months. “He was always worried about his daughter’s treatment,” his fears were real, said his sister-in-law Gudiya sobbing; his eldest daughter recently refused to talk about marriage because of the family’s loss of their mother.
The case resembled the Burari death case of 2018, where eleven people from the same family were found dead in mysterious circumstances. While those results are out, the police are looking into phone call logs and bank statements in a bid to reconstruct the family’s last moments. For now, a community remains in shock demanding to know more about the death of the family that lived a reclusive life.