In a shocking incident, nine members of a family were found dead in Mhaisal are in Miraj tehsil of Sangli district of Maharashtra - in what appears to be a suicide pact.
The deceased is suspected to have died of poisoning. The bodies were found on Monday morning in their house in the Ambikanagar locality.
The deceased were identified as Akkatai Vamore, her two sons Dr Manik Yellapa Vanmore and Popat Yelappa Vanmore. Manilk’s wife Rekha Manik Vanmore, their daughter Pratima Vanmore and son Aditya Vanmore, Popat’s wife Archana Vamore, daughter Sangeeta Vanmore and son Shubham Vanmore.
The bodies are being sent for post-mortem at a government hospital at Miraj.
While Manik is a veterinary doctor, Popat is a teacher by profession.
“Some kind of poisoning seems to be the reason behind all of their deaths,” Special Inspector General of Police (Kolhapur range) Manojkumar Lohiya said.
“We have found nine bodies in a house. Three bodies were found at one place, while six were found at other different places in the house," Sangli Superintendent of Police Dikshit Gedam said.
A “suicide pact” has not been ruled out by police, however, detailed investigations were in progress. Photographs of the house and the crime scene were taken and forensic analysis is being done.
The financial details of the family were being checked to ascertain whether they were in some kind of distress or whether they had obtained huge loans.
The news of the alleged mass-suicide spread like wildfire in the entire Sangli district.
This is considered to be the second biggest incident of its kind in Maharashtra after the one at Kasarvadavali in Thane, in which an accountant Hasnain Anwar Warekar sedated and killed 14 of his family members before killing himself on February 28, 2016.
On May 30, 2022, a woman jumped into a well along with her six children in a village at Mahad in the Raigad district.