CCTV footage obtained from cameras installed near the Bhatia residence has revealed more secrets behind the Burari deaths.
Eleven members of a family in Delhi's Burari area were found hanging earlier this week, giving rise to various speculations. Police have now found diaries as well as CCTV footage that show that the family had taken part in a mass suicide ritual.
CCTV shows family organising mass hanging
The CCTV footage has established that there was "no outside role" in the deaths of 11 members of the Bhatia family, who killed themselves on July 1. Notes found in several diaries carried detailed instructions about the ritual.
Before killing themselves, the family had ordered food from an eatery at around 10 pm. A note in the diary says that no food must be cooked on the day of the ritual.
CCTV footage shows food being delivered at around 10:39 pm. They followed the instruction written in the diary, which said that the "mother would feed everyone roti" before participating in the "kriya (final act)" at 1 am.
According to the footage obtained from a CCTV camera installed near the entrance of the house, a woman, her daughter, and two minors are seen carrying stools. They are also seen carrying wires, which they later used to kill themselves.
The close-circuit cameras have caught fleeting glimpses of different members of the family doing minor tasks that had been assigned by Narayani Devi's 45-year-old son Lalit Bhatia. The two youngest members of the family, Dhruv and Shivam were also seen going down to the furniture store owned by the family to get wires.
After midnight, the two kids along with other family members killed reportedly killed themselves.
The next morning, neighbours found the blindfolded, gagged and bound dead bodies.
Diary contained instruction for the mass hanging
The final entry in the diary was made on June 30. The instructions were listed under a title which said "Bhagwaan ka raasta (Road to god)". The steps for the mass suicide was that the faces, ears and eyes were to be covered with "doctor's patti (bandage)".
It also said that nine people would hang from the "jaal" (a grill) and one person, "Baby" - the widowed sister of Lalit and his older brother Bhuvanesh - would hang near the mandir (temple).
The last sentence in the diary read "...keep water in a cup, when it changes colour, I will appear and save you," reported NDTV. The family was to untie each other after the ritual was complete.
Suicide part of thanksgiving to spirits
According to the cops, the mass suicide was done to thank the spirits.
"This was a final thanksgiving to the spirits," NDTV quoted a police officer as saying. They were expressing gratitude to the spirits as they had helped the family with good fortune. The family's finances had improved vastly in the past few years and one of the young girls, who had been struggling to find a match got engaged last month.
The cops are probing the angle whether the Bhatia family could have been suffering from "shared psychosis," due to which they believed that the late father of Lalit Bhatia, one of the deceased, was speaking to them and wanted them to perform the ritual.
