Parents kill girl, consume cyanide in suicide pact

Mangalore Today/DHNS

Bangalore: August 23, 2013: A jeweller and his wife allegedly killed their seven-year-old daughter before ending their own lives by consuming potassium cyanide early on Friday.

Sandeep (38), Archana (36) and Aditi (7) were found dead inside their car, parked on the roadside at Chikkasane near Devanahalli. Sandeep owned a jewellery shop at Gandhi Bazar in Basavanagudi. The family lived at Hanumanthnagar. Aditi was a Class II student in Bishop Cotton English Medium School.

 

Police have found a death note, drafted in English, inside the car. It read: “We are no longer interested in living. There is something which has upset us. We have decided to end our lives on our own. We request the police not to probe into the matter.”

Family members were also clueless about what prompted them to commit suicide. The couple had spoken to many of their relatives on Thursday, the police said.

Sandeep, who also owned several jewellery facilities across the City, returned home late on Thursday. The couple called most of their relatives, enquiring about their well-being. They sent text messages to some of the relatives reading: “We are no longer interested in life. You won’t see us tomorrow. We are going to Chikkasane near Devanahalli to end our lives.”

“I was shocked when I read the message after I woke up on Friday,” Sandeep’s brother Satish told Deccan Herald. “I was worried as to what might have gone wrong and called up my brother, but there was no response. I rushed to the place he had mentioned in the message and spotted his car on the roadside. All of them were dead. I alerted the police and other relatives.”

The police said Sandeep had easy access to potassium cyanide as it is used to clean jewellery. It is not known how they carried it. The police have quarantined the car as potassium cyanide is extremely poisonous and can kill anybody in less than three seconds.

The bodies were taken to hospital for post-mortem.

The messages were sent around midnight and they apparently consumed poison around 3:30 am, the police said.

A juice glass has been recovered from the car. “We suspect that the couple mixed the poison with juice and offered it to Aditi,” said a police officer. He added that some materials have been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory for examination.
Aditi was a brilliant student, according to a few relatives.

Archana’s mother, Saraswathi, said she hailed from a poor family, but her daughter had every comfort in life. “How could they kill Aditi, who was so cute and brilliant? For what mistake of hers did they take Aditi’s life?” an inconsolable Saraswathi lamented.