The veterinarian who allegedly killed his family before committing suicide at their home in Daund taluka, about 60 km from Pune, used to “frequently" quarrel with his wife, including on the night before the entire family was wiped out, according to local residents and the police. On Wednesday, The Indian Express visited the site in Varvand - and found an entire village still struggling to make sense of what had unfolded the previous day. According to the police, Dr Atul Divekar (42) allegedly strangled his wife Pallavi (35) and then threw their son Advait (9) and daughter Vedanti (6) in a well on his farm about 2 km from their rented apartment in Chaitali Park society, one of the few apartment buildings in the village. “The neighbours told us that the couple had a quarrel the night before as well. It appears that Atul strangled Pallavi during a quarrel late at night on Monday or early Tuesday morning. He may have decided to kill the kids after realising that he will go to jail. A cousin saw him with the kids on a motorbike going towards his farm at about 8 am (hours before their bodies were discovered),” said Anand Bhoite, Deputy Superintendent of Pune Rural Police. After the couple's bodies were found on Tuesday afternoon, a search group located the children after spotting their footwear floating on the water in the well on Divekar's farm. “It took us hours to salvage their bodies after draining the water using pumps,” said a member of the group, who did not wish to be identified. “We spoke to some of his friends who said that Atul shared his frustrations with them and told them that he saw no point in living. But the friends did not expect that he would take such a drastic step,” Bhoite said. According to the family's neighbours, Divekar did not have a clinic of his own and used to travel to other villages in the area on work while Pallavi was a teacher at Gopinath Madhyamik Vidyalaya about 1 km from their house. Local police said the incident came to light after a doctor friend of Divekar reached the family's home after unsuccessfully dialling the phones of the couple. “When he found the house locked, he called Divekar's relatives and the local Police Patil who reached the spot. They broke open the door to find Pallavi's body on the bed. They discovered Divekar's body hanging from the fan in the bedroom and a suicide note that mentioned the location of the kids,” said the policeman. At the three-storey housing society, where the Divekars stayed on the second floor, most of the other apartments were locked on Wednesday with a few residents who were present saying they knew “very little about the family”. At Divekar's four-acre sugarcane farm, a local resident tilling a field nearby said the couple fought frequently. “As far as I know, there was no financial crunch. But I was aware of the frequent quarrels between the couple. This time, it went too far,” said the resident, who did not wish to be identified. According to Divekar's relatives, the family used to stay earlier at their ancestral home in Ganeshwadi with his mother but moved out a few years ago for their school-going children. Divekar's uncle Hanumant Jagtap said, “My sister (Atul's mother) is in shock. We have informed her only about Atul's death. She is not aware that the entire family is gone,” Jagtap said.
