Fresh leads emerge in Panchkula family suicide case: Failing business, YouTube gamble & food before death

As investigations deepen into the tragic Panchkula family suicide case, the police have revealed fresh insights into Parveen Mittal's desperate attempts to salvage his finances and the family's final movements on Monday.

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According to police sources, Parveen Mittal had been reeling under severe financial stress for years, following the collapse of multiple ventures, including a scrap-processing plant in Baddi and tours and travel operations in Dehradun.

These repeated failures left him reportedly under debt of several crores, and, as authorities now suspect, mentally distressed.

In a bid to recover financially, Mittal ventured into digital content creation, launching a YouTube channel ‘Aggarwal Associates Official’ in 2022. The channel hosted 39 videos and had a modest subscriber base of 1.14K. The description made an ambitious promise: “Hello Friends, we need YouTubers for our channel. Send us your shorts and videos and earn up to Rs 13,500 per month.”

Mittal had uploaded last video on May 14 sitting in the same car in which he allegedly consumed poison along with his six family members, including three minor children.

In the video, he can be seen describing a scheme to pay viewers for sharing content. The videos outlined a pricing model — Rs 50 to Rs 100 for long videos, Rs 10 to Rs 100 for shorts — and featured seven “plans” requiring advance payments ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 10,000.

Investigators are now probing whether this initiative was a last-ditch attempt to offset his growing debts. Through Parveen's channel, the downfall is apparent. It first started two years back with videos of all the NGO work, he does along with a few others in Dehradun, in between one or two videos also gave a glimpse of his twin daughters playing with each other and another one where one daughter was taking care of his ailing mother Bimla. But the last such post on charity was done in May 2024 and after that the channel went silent for a year only to be used again by Parveen on May 14.

Meanwhile, the authorities have pieced together a tentative timeline of the family's last known movements on Monday. Surveillance footage and call data suggest the family's car was parked in Sector 27 at around 6.45 pm. Based on lots of house stuff found inside the vehicle, investigators believe they consumed home-cooked food during this time. However, it remains unclear whether the suspected poison was ingested through food or water.

Prior to their arrival in Sector 27, the family had checked into two rooms at Ambedkar Bhawan in Sector 12. They reportedly departed from the guesthouse around 6.30 pm. Contrary to earlier speculation, the police confirmed there was no indication of the family attending the ongoing Hanuman Katha at Bageshwar Dham in Sector 5, Panchkula.

As the case continues to unfold, the authorities are examining financial records, digital footprints and social media activity to better understand the psychological and economic pressures that may have influenced Mittal's actions. The police have not ruled out further leads related to the YouTube channel's payment model, which could potentially involve unsuspecting contributors.