In a bizarre incident, which is a stark reminder of the Burari case in Delhi, the bodies of four family members were found stacked and buried in a pit in their house in Kerala's Idukki district. The family members had reportedly been missing for about four days.
The family lived in a secluded place in a rubber estate at Mundanmudi and mostly kept to themselves. The incident came to light only when a few neighbours and relatives went looking for them on Wednesday, August 1, morning. While they hoped to meet the family, they instead found blood stains on the floor and walls.
They then reported the matter to the police, who after an investigation recovered the bodies of a man and his wife along with their two children in the compound of their house. The bodies have been identified as Krishnan (52), his wife Susheela (50), their daughter Arsha (21) and son Arjun (19).
The police now believe that they could have died after July 29. While the exact cause of the deaths hasn't been ascertained, the family appeared to be practising witchcraft and a knife and a hammer were also found nearby.
"The father had a rubber plantation but also appeared to have practised witchcraft. We still have not been able to find the cause and means of death. We are probing all angles to the death, including witchcraft", NDTV quoted police sources as saying.
The police also revealed that the bodies were recovered when they noticed loose soil in the backyard of the house and decided to remove it.
The four bodies have now been sent for postmortem, but the bodies clearly bore injuries that seemed to have been caused with the hammer.
The incident comes weeks after the Burari mass suicide rocked the nation. The residents of North Delhi woke up to shocking news on July 1, as 11 members of a family were found blindfolded, gagged and hanging in the courtyard of their home, in what looked like a case of mass suicide.
The police investigating the matter then found weird details about the family and believe that this could be a case of some religious or mystical practices gone wrong.
The house bore no signs of ransacking or theft and even the jewellery on the women was untouched, due to which the investigators remained clueless for hours. However, the police later found handwritten notes in the house that spoke about attaining salvation.
Speaking of the incident, joint commissioner of police (crime) Alok Kumar told the Press Trust of India: "We have found handwritten notes detailing how hands and legs are to be tied and are quite similar to the manner in which the bodies of 10 persons were found. They are exhaustive notes and we are studying them."
