Goa: Two children found dead inside house, father found hanging

Police suspect Joy Fernandes, the father of the children and an aspiring politician who unsuccessfully contested the district panchayat polls in 2021, as the prime suspect behind the double murder

Two minor boys aged eight and fifteen were found dead in their house while their father was found hanging from a tree in the backside of the house in north Goa’s Candolim on Saturday night, police said.

(Representative Photo)

Police said upon reaching the spot after an emergency call, they found the two boys lying on the floor, believed to have been strangled.

Police suspect Joy Fernandes, the father of the children and an aspiring politician who unsuccessfully contested the district panchayat polls in 2021, as the prime suspect behind the double murder.

Police said the mother of the two children, who was not home at the time of the incident returned to find the house locked from the inside. She broke into the house with the help of the neighbours and found the two children lying unconscious and made an emergency call, police said.

“At around 10:30pm, we received an emergency call saying two children were unconscious. We immediately reached the spot. The bodies were shifted to the primary health centre where they were declared dead,” North Goa superintendent of police (SP) Nidhin Valsan said.

“We found the father hanging. Prima facie it seems the kids were strangulated and he killed himself,” Valsan added.

The bodies were subsequently shifted to the Goa Medical College and Hospital for legal proceedings including post-mortem, police said.

An investigation into the matter has been launched, SP Valsan said.