‘I have gone bankrupt. I am responsible for all this’: 7 members of a family found dead in Haryana’s Panchkula

The preliminary cause of death appears to be poisoning, and the police’s probe so far indicates it was an alleged case of suicide.

Himadree Kaushik, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Panchkula, Vikram Nehra, Assistant Commissioner of Police, and other senior officers reached the spot, and later went to the hospital. Kaushik told The Indian Express, “Prima facie, it appears to be a case of suicide due to the financial debt and psychological issues that the family was facing. We are recording statements of the deceased’s relatives and are further investigating the case. All angles are being looked into”.

The police said they received a call around midnight about a few people sitting in a car in suspicious circumstances outside a house in Sector 27. After which, Dial 112’s Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) reached the spot, and found most of them in a semi-conscious state. All of them were rushed to a nearby Ojas Hospital by the police.

They said Mittal had started a tours and travels agency in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun, in which he suffered financial losses.

‘He was semi-conscious, trembling’

The police said they also recovered a two-page note from the Hyundai car in which all seven were found. “I have gone bankrupt. I am responsible for all this. My father-in-law should not be harassed. The last rites of my family members shall be performed by my cousin,” Praveen Mittal said in the note, according to the police.

The police also recorded a statement of a Sector 27 resident, Harsh, who first spotted the members of the Mittal family sitting inside the car late Monday. Harsh told the police that he was taking a stroll outside his house when he saw the Hyundai car in which several people were sitting. The car’s rear windshield was covered with a towel, he said.

“One person was alive among all the occupants of the vehicle. I managed to pull him out of the car. I saw there were vomits everywhere inside the car. The man whom I pulled out identified himself as Praveen Mittal. He told me that he and his family members had gone to attend the religious discourse of Dhirendra Shastri,” said Harsh.

“I got slightly suspicious about his version because he was semi-conscious. He was trembling. I tried to make him drink a sip of water. He told me that he had consumed poison, and all his family members who were in the car had also consumed poison. I immediately dialled the Police Control Room on Dial-112, after which police reached the spot and first took Praveen Mittal to the hospital, followed by all the other occupants of the car,” he added.

‘Was in deep debt’

Praveen’s father-in-law, Rakesh Gupta, told the police that he had not been in touch with Praveen for almost 10 years. Gupta said he learnt that Praveen had taken a loan of approximately Rs. 1 crore, which he failed to pay back to the bank.

He also told the police that Praveen and his family members were living in a rented accommodation in the Mansa Devi Complex for the last few months, and that he also helped his daughter Reena financially.

Reena’s sister, Rakhi Gupta, also told the police that she heard that a bank had declared Praveen a proclaimed offender after he failed to pay back the loan that he had taken. She added that a few months ago, Praveen and Reena settled in Mansa Devi Complex, and got their children admitted to a school in Sector 22 of Chandigarh.

Praveen’s cousin, Sandeep Aggarwal, told the police that Praveen had first shifted to Panchkula about 12 years ago. He used to run a scrap-material processing factory. For the last about five years, he was not in much contact with his relatives, and had shifted to Dehradun, where he started a tours and travel agency in which he suffered financial losses.

“I had spoken with Praveen last week. He told me that he was in deep debt and disclosed that he was running a taxi business,” Sandeep told the police.