‘Never spoke to anyone… never went out’: Brother, sister die by suicide in rented flat in Delhi’s Shahdara

On Sunday morning, police found Vinesh Kumar Tomar, 32, and his sister Chinki, 30, dead inside the ground-floor flat. They had allegedly hanged themselves.

It was the neighbours who had alerted the police at 8 am after sensing the foul smell from a distance away. “The flat was found locked from the inside. After breaking in, two people were found dead. They were identified as siblings,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Prashant Gautam said.

The Tomars hailed from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh. Police suspect the suicide took place three days ago.

That no one had seen Vinesh and Chinki over the last few days was not something unusual.

“The siblings never talked to anyone in the area. They never went out or had any guests as such. They just came out to get groceries; for the remaining part, they kept to themselves. Even if a neighbour knocked at their door, they would just open it slightly and never offer an invitation. So, no one expected to see them much,” says Yogesh Arora, who has been living on the first floor of the building for the last two years.

It was Arora who had asked one of the neighbours to call the police. The owner of the flat, 58-year-old Rajiv, who lives in another part of Dilshad Garden, was also called in.

“I got a call from the police around 8.30 am today. They said that my tenants were found dead in the house,” says Rajiv.

Inside the house, all that the small and dimly lit front room, seen through the hole in the door, has is a five-seater black sofa set. Three cushions lie about in a disorganised manner; two TV remote controls sit unattended. Behind the floral-patterned curtains is the other room from which the bodies were recovered.

“Both bodies were found hanging in the bedroom. Vinesh’s body was hanging from a fan with a dupatta. Chinki’s body was hanging from a hook on the side of the fan,” says a police officer.

The siblings had been staying in the area since 2021 — the year they lost their mother. Their father had died a decade before that, in 2011.

At the Seemapuri police station, their uncle Vikas Kumar, who has come from Shamli, UP, says he had not been in regular touch with the siblings. “I got a call from another nephew of mine at 10 am today. We immediately left for Delhi. They (Vinesh and Chinki) were not in touch with us either. The last time I talked to Vinesh was two months ago. Since their mother’s death, they had been keeping to themselves,” says Kumar, a 58-year-old farmer.

Kumar says the family was earlier based in Meerut, where Vinesh and Chinki’s father Devender Tomar was posted as an Army Subedar. “Their father died of a heart attack in 2011 while on duty. They then moved to the Jhilmil area in Delhi,” he adds.

Both Vinesh and Chinki had done BBA and MBA. All was seemingly going well until the death of their mother, Anita. “She had paralysis. In 2021, she died of a heart attack. She had not been keeping well since her husband’s passing. After her death, Vinesh and Chinki moved to this house. Thereafter, they stopped visiting the village,” says Kumar.

The bodies of Vinesh and Chinki have been kept at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, where the post-mortem will be done on Monday, says a police officer. “We would know more about the cause of the death only after the post-mortem results come out,” the officer adds.

Back at Dilshad Garden, Vinesh and Chinki’s landlord Rajiv, echoing the sentiments of the neighbours, says he had barely interacted with the siblings.

“The brother worked at an IT company, and his sister was doing a course. I did not have much of an interaction with them… only once in two to four months,” says Rajiv.

The last time Rajiv interacted with the duo was when they had sought some time from him to clear his dues – they had not paid last month’s rent. “I was going to visit them soon to collect it.”