NEW DELHI: With a butcher’s knife, two litres of milk and sleeping pills in his possession, Upendra, 42, according to police, braced himself to kill his family at least three days back, even though the neighbours said that they were “completely shocked” at the news as there was “nothing fishy” in his demeanour all these days.
According to a preliminary investigation by the police, Upendra was ready with the knife three days back. On Saturday evening, he bought milk from the grocery store on the ground floor of the building in which he was staying with his family for last six years and also got sleeping pills from a nearby medical store.
“He bought 2 litres of milk from me around 4 pm. He looked fine. At night, around 9 pm, his children came down to buy toffees. Everything seemed normal. We couldn’t imagine that this was what he was up to,” said Deepak Aggarwal, who runs the grocery store. Aggarwal said that he had known Upendra and the family for the last four years.
Hailing from Bihar’s Champaran, Upendra had bought the apartment in Mehrauli six years back. He tutored children at their homes in Gurugram and Vasant Vihar while his wife was a housewife. “He was financially sound. I do not know of any serious altercations he had with his wife. I had very good relations with him but he never complained talked about being depressed or having any issues in his marriage,” he said.
Upendra’s wife, he added, “hardly” stepped out of the house. “She would only walk down to the school to drop off and bring her children home. There were no family outings as such,” he said. In his confessional notes, Upendra wrote that he was responsible for the murders. “He wrote, don’t bother my family...I am responsible for this,” a police officer said, adding that he mentioned the time of the crime as 2.18 am.“He even wrote about his wife’s health problems saying she had diabetes,” the officer said.