An unemployed software engineer allegedly murdered his 32-year-old wife and three kids, aged five and four, at their home in Ghaziabad and sent a confessional video to a family group on WhatsApp, police said on Sunday.
Thirty-four-year-old Sumit Kumar, who fled after the murder, also said in the video that he had purchased potassium cyanide to end his life, according to a Hindustan Times report.
On seeing the video, Kumar’s sister, who also stays in the same area of Indirapuram, alerted her brother-in-law, Pankaj Singh, who rushed to the apartment. Upon finding the flat locked, he called the police to break open the door. "We found the body of my sister and her three children with stab injuries," Pankaj Singh claimed.
The deceased were identified as Anshu Bala, Kumar’s wife, their five-year-old son Prathmesh and twins Aarav and Aakriti, both aged four. Anshu was working as a playschool teacher in Indirapuram while Kumar had quit his job in December, relatives said. The two got married in 2011.
Police said financial constraints may have driven Kumar to murder his family. According to Singh, Kumar was facing a financial crisis after he quit his job last year. Anshu's parents also stayed with the family but had left to attend a wedding around a week back, leaving behind Kumar, his wife and three children.
In the video, Kumar confessed that he gave his family a drink laced with sedatives and killed them with a sharp object, police said. A manhunt has been launched to trace him, but his mobile is switched off.
Kumar had earlier worked with several software companies in Gurugram, Noida and later moved to Bengaluru in October 2018. After resigning in December 2018, he stayed with his brother for two months, before returning to Ghaziabad. The family learned about his resignation only around Holi. "We do not know the reason. I spoke to him last on Friday and he was smoking continuously. There were issues due to financial problems and his behaviour had also become erratic,” Singh said.
The police on probing the guard of the housing society where the family lived said that he saw Kumar leaving the main gate late on Saturday night. “I saw him smoking downstairs around 11.30pm. Later, at around 3 am, I saw him going outside the main entrance on foot... I did not hear any sound from their second floor flat either,” said Indrajit Singh, the guard of the housing society.
The bodies of the four victims were sent for post-mortem and the police filed an FIR after the victim’s brother filed a complaint. Kumar was booked under section 302 (murder) of IPC.