Hisar man kills wife, three children, then himself to attain 'moksha'

Deepender Deswal
Tribune News Service
Hisar, December 20

A 45-year-old man in Hisar’s Nangthala village killed his three children and his wife before finally jumping in front of an oncoming vehicle, police said on Monday.

Ramesh Varma was a shopkeeper who lived with his 38-year-old wife Sunita, and his three children—two daughters, 14-year-old Anushka and 12-year-old Deepika, and a son, 10-year-old Keshav. Police sources said that on Sunday, Varma closed his shop for the day at 3 pm instead of staying open as usual until 10 pm.  Investigators suspect he mixed some sleeping pills in the ‘kheer’ that the family was to have after dinner that night, bludgeoned them to death when they were still unconscious, left home in the early hours of Monday and threw himself in front of an oncoming vehicle to kill himself.

Policemen called to the scene of Varma’s death on Agroha-Barwala road tried to get in touch with his family only to find their bloodied bodies in the house.

‘Moksha’

A notebook found after Varma’s death attributed his death to his belief that he would attain “moksha”, Deputy Inspector General Balwan Singh Rana said. The notebook contained Varma’s suicide note in which he said he’d no regrets and even apologised for the trouble he gave people.

The note also shows that he’d tried to kill himself unsuccessfully in the past by trying to get electrocuted.

Police sources said his shop was doing well and ruled out any financial strain for the suicide.

In the Hindu belief system, ‘moksha’ is the liberation of the soul from the cycle of births and rebirths.

The incident eerily harks back to the Burari killings, a case where 11 family members of the Chundawat family from Burari in Delhi were found dead—the family members first having strangled the oldest member of the family, an elderly woman, before hanging themselves. Police ruled the case as one of mass suicide.

God-fearing, animal-loving man

Varma’s neighbours describe him as reserved, docile, god-fearing, and animal-loving.

Subhash, who owns a shop near Ramesh Varma’s, said he kept to himself and didn’t often mix with other shopkeepers.

Naresh Kumar, the Varmas’ neighbour in the village, said he would frequently build nests for birds in his house and in the neighbourhood. He was neighbourhood’s snake catcher too, he said.

“He was never afraid of snakes. People called him whenever any snake slithered into their houses. He would capture them very carefully and release them in the forest,” Naresh Kumar said.

Police sources said he would reportedly also perform religious ceremonies in the house on some nights.