Poison ingested by Panchkula family was bought online

The substance allegedly ingested by seven members of the Panchkula family to end life was sodium nitrate. Police sources said Parveen Mittal, one of the deceased persons, had purchased it through an online platform under the guise of a commercial food preservative.

Investigators believe that the chemical, in powdered form, was mixed into a cold drink and consumed by the Mittal family on Monday evening in a car parked at Sector 27 in Panchkula.

Fresh surveillance footage showed the car in which the seven members, including Parveen’s wife, three children and parents, allegedly ‘took poison’ near the Old Panchkula roundabout around 5 pm. The car remained parked in Sector 27 since 6.30 pm on the fateful day and was discovered around 10 pm by neighbours for suspicious activity, which prompted a call to ‘112’ and arrival of the police and ambulance. Earlier that day, the family had checked into two rooms at Ambedkar Bhawan in Sector 12, which they vacated before heading to Sector 27.

Parveen Mittal, a once-hopeful entrepreneur, had spent the last years chasing one venture after another, each one crumbling faster than the last. Investigations revealed the full extent of his desperate attempts to restore his finances.

In April this year, he had rented Hotel Alaknanda and Hotel Ananda on the Kaulagarh road in Rajender Nagar, Dehradun. It wasn’t his only gamble. Records show he had also registered a taxi service (Aggarwal Taxi Service), a spiritual consultancy — Aggarwal Jyotish Kendra — and had links to an NGO (Child Life Care Mission), whose charity work featured in the earlier videos of his YouTube channel (Aggarwal Associates Official). Several of these businesses appear to have been registered in the name of his teenage son, Hardik, possibly to shield liabilities or rejuvenate credibility.

The suicide note, sent for forensic handwriting verification, expressed Parveen Mittal’s grim reasoning behind including his children in the act, stating that he feared they would face emotional trauma and social isolation if left behind.