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9 of Sangli family found dead in suspected suicide
Nine members of a family were found dead at their home in Mhaisal village in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, officials said on Monday, adding that they suspected it to be a case of mass suicide.
Pune: Nine members of a family were found dead at their home in Mhaisal village in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, officials said on Monday, adding that they suspected it to be a case of mass suicide.
The bodies were found in two different houses belonging to the family, about 1.5km apart, in the village over 350km from Mumbai. The deceased included two brothers, aged 56 and 49, their mother, 72, their wives, aged 45 and 48, and their four children, the youngest of whom was 15 years old, Pune superintendent of police Dikshit Gedam said.
A preliminary probe suggested the family reportedly had borrowings of about ₹1 crore, and was under sustained pressure from lenders, officers aware of the matter said.
“Prima facie, it looks that the family members of the two brothers have ended their lives. As per information received so far, both the brothers had borrowed money from various people. We are trying to establish the sequence of events as both the spots (houses where bodies were found) are 1.5km away from each other,” said Manojkumar Lohiya, inspector general of the Kolhapur range. He said six bodies were found in one house, and three others in the second house.
Lohiya said police found suicide notes from both the locations, which were being analysed them.
“The content in the notes suggests they had a lot of borrowings and they were being pestered by the lenders. However, we are probing the case from all angles,” said the officer.
The incident was a grim reminder of a similar case in 2018 in Delhi’s Burari, where 11 members of a family were found dead, most of them hanging in their house. The bodies were gagged and blindfolded, and their hands were tied behind their backs. The police in the Capital said it appeared to be a suicide pact in a larger ritual that had gone wrong.
According to officials, the incident came to light when a milkman approached the elder brother’s house at around 11am. After receiving no response from inside, the milkman peered through the living room window and saw six bodies on the floor, said an official from the Miraj police station where the case has been filed.
He rushed to the second house, but his calls went similarly unanswered, said the official. The milkman then alerted the neighbours, he said.
“A police team reached the second house by 1pm, and found the remaining three family members lying on the floor,” Lohiya said.
Sangli police have filed an FIR against 25 unidentified persons for abetment to suicide and under relevant sections of the Money Lenders Act, said Sangli SP Gedam.
While there were no external injuries on the bodies of any of the deceased, police found traces of pesticide in their mouths, said Gedam. The bodies have been sent for postmortem examinations, he added.
Officials at the Miraj police station also said that two recovery notices served by a credit society with a demand of ₹5 lakh and ₹2 lakh, respectively, were found near the corpses.
