Agencies / New Delhi
A private tuition teacher in Delhi’s Mehrauli area was arrested on Saturday for killing his wife and three children. According to police, the accused has been identified as Upendra Shukla. An officer said that Shukla used a kitchen knife to stab his wife, a seven-year-old daughter, a five-year-old son and a two-month-old daughter around 1 AM. The accused also left a note, accepting that he was behind the murders.
The incident came to light in the morning when the accused’s mother-in-law, who was also in the house, knocked the door of Shuka’s room and did not get a response, following which she sought neighbours’ help.
When their efforts went in vain, the people gathered at Shukla’s house called the police, who found the four lying in a pool of blood with the accused sitting inside.
“Police have recovered a handwritten note where he has written that he killed all of them but no reason has been mentioned,” said DCP South Vijay Kumar.
He has been arrested and police are questioning him. A crime team has also visited the place and collected the weapon of offence. Police said only after detailed questioning the motive behind the act would be clear. “But what we gather is that his wife had diabetes and he was not financially stable. Whether this or some sort of depression or family dispute led to the crime will be known after interrogation,” he added.
The incident reminds one of the mass family suicide which rocked the national capital about a year ago on July 1 of 2018 when locals and police officials found the bodies of eleven members of the same family at their residence in Burari. The victims included the family’s 77-year-old matriarch, three women, two men and four children. It was later revealed that the deaths were a pre-meditated case of ‘mass suicide’. Officials with the psychology division of the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) which was formed after the ‘Burari deaths’ suggested that this was a case of ‘shared psychosis’.
