CHENNAI: A software engineer used an electric power saw to murder his wife and two young children before turning the blade on himself, in Pallavaram on Friday night. Police said the techie committed the crime hours after celebrating his wedding anniversary at home.
The techie, Prakash, 41, left a suicide note on a wall, saying no one was responsible for their deaths. His father-in-law Ramanan was the first to visit the crime scene when he entered the home on Saturday morning to hand over temple prasadam to his daughter P Gayathri, 39. Ramanan found his daughter and grandchildren — Nithya Shree, 13, and Harikrishnan, 8 — lying in a pool of blood in the living room, with their necks gashed. Prakash was lying a little away with the electric saw stuck on his neck.
Police suspect Prakash might have sedated his family members before murdering them. High debts may have forced the techie to take the extreme step. Prakash worked at Cognizant Technologies Limited while his wife was running a traditional medicine shop in the neighbourhood. Nithya Shree was studying in Class IX and Harikrishnan in Class II. Preliminary inquiries revealed that Prakash had borrowed money to grow his wife’s business during the pandemic. As he failed to repay the money, the debts amounted to more than 10 lakh, said an investigation officer quoting Prakash’s neighbours and family members. Police have collected food samples and the cake left behind at the house for forensic examination to ascertain if the items had been laced with sedatives. Tambaram commissioner of police M Ravi said, “We recovered a suicide note written in English on an A-4 size paper which was found pasted on the wall in the living room.”
Other top officials, including deputy commissioner Sibi Chakravarthy and Sankar Nagar inspector of police Albin Raj visited the spot and sent the bodies to the government hospital in Chromepet for post-mortem.
