3 min readBengaluruJun 10, 2026 10:13 PM IST
First published on: Jun 10, 2026 at 01:18 PM IST
A 65-year-old cloth merchant allegedly killed his wife and son before dying by suicide in Karnataka’s Mandya district on Tuesday, with preliminary investigations suggesting that financial distress and losses in his business may have driven him to take the extreme step.
The police identified the deceased as Prabhakar, his wife Jyoti, 55, and their son, Santosh, 30, all residents of Nehru Nagar in Mandya city. Prabhakar’s daughter lives in Bengaluru, while Santosh and his wife stayed with his parents in a rented house.
The Mandya East police believe the incident occurred between 5 am and 6 am on Tuesday, with preliminary findings indicating that Prabhakar suffocated or strangled his wife and son at their home before proceeding to his store named Kamadhenu, where he allegedly died by suicide.
Santosh’s wife, who reportedly married him only a month ago, was asleep in the house at the time and unaware of the incident, the police said.
The police have recovered a suicide note from the scene, Superintendent of Police V J Shobha Rani said, adding that Prabhakar wrote that he had been suffering losses in his cloth business and was facing severe financial difficulties.
“He was under severe financial stress due to debts and difficulties in repaying loans. The investigation is continuing,” she said.
The police said Prabhakar had also taken a housing loan and found it difficult to repay monthly instalments. He had allegedly borrowed money from multiple sources, including microfinance institutions, and was facing increasing financial pressure.
The purported suicide note also stated that customer visits to his shop had declined due to the availability of free bus travel for women under the government’s Shakti scheme, resulting in lower sales and reduced income, the police said.
“There is no mention of any other specific reason in the note. At present, the exact sequence of events is yet to be confirmed. However, based on the preliminary examination and the presence of strangulation marks, it appears that he first killed his wife, then his son, and later died by suicide at his shop,” the district police chief said.
The police said a dhoti was found near Prabhakar’s bed and is suspected to have been used in the crime.
The bodies were handed over to the family after postmortems at the Mandya Institute of Medical Sciences (MIMS). The postmortem reports are awaited.
The police said a constable sustained injuries while pursuing Jeeva. (File Photo) 
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