FAMILY OF EIGHT ATTEMPTS SUICIDE IN TN, SIX KILLED

Six members of a Madurai business family, allegedly battling a financial crisis, committed suicide on Sunday while two members are battling for life in a hospital.

Kurunji Kumaran and his brother Velumurugan’s families shared a house at Yagappa Nagar in the temple town of Madurai in central Tamil Nadu and were running an elementary school in Anna Nagar, police said.

They also dabbled in real estate. Police found a suicide note in the house but didn’t share the contents.

Madurai police commissioner Mahesh Kumar Agarwal told HT, “we are exploring the angle of financial stress as well. But since investigations are on, there is nothing else to say as of now.”

Neighbours suspect the family was struggling to pay debts incurred in running the school. The real estate business, too, was not doing well, they said.

A relative of the family, also a neighbour, got worried when he didn’t see the Kumarans all of Sunday. Ravichandran went to the house in the evening.

When no one answered the door, he called some neighbours and they forced open it. They found the brothers, their mother Jagajothi, Kurunji’s daughter Tharani and Velumurugan’s daughter Jayasakhti dead.

Velumurugan’s wife Devi died at the hospital while Kurunji’s wife Thangaselvi and daughter Jayamonika were in a critical condition, Ravichandran said. The ambulance took too long to come and they rushed Jayamonika to the hospital in a twowheeler and Devi in an auto, he said. “We stopped a private minibus to take Thangaselvi to the hospital,” Ravichandran said.

CHENNAI: NEIGHBOURS SUSPECT THE FAMILY WAS STRUGGLING TO PAY DEBTS INCURRED IN RUNNING THE SCHOOL AND THE REAL ESTATE