Cops don’t buy ‘debt woes’ as reason behind tragic end

The investigators are questioning Bhingare’s relatives and neighbours. Also, one team of Kherwadi police will question the colleagues of Bhingare on Monday to ascertain if he was ‘seemingly depressed’

The investigators probing suicide of four-member family in Bandra (east) are not convinced to buy the reason of ‘not buying a flat due to financial woes’ written in oneand-a-half page suicide note undersigned by Vidhan Bhavan staffer Rajesh Bhingare (45).

The bodies of class fourth employee Bhingare, his wife Ashwini and their sons Tushar (23), Gaurang (19) were found inside a locked one room kitchen house in government colony, which is hardly few metres away from Kherwadi police station in Bandra (east). Tushar worked in a pub chain whereas Gaurang was a college student. In the suicide note Bhingare has asked his ‘sisters to take care of themselves’, said another officer privy to the investigation. “Bhingare was a peon and temporarily posted at Dhananjay Munde’s office. He had purchased a motorcycle for his son. He has named a person for taking the custody of that motorcycle. As per the suicide note, Bhingare was depressed because he could not buy a flat for his family in his over two-decade career,” the officer said.

Another officer said, “He was only 45 years old. He still had 15 years to make a house in Mumbai. We suspect a lot more in this case.”

The investigators are questioning Bhingare’s relatives and neighbours. Also, one team of Kherwadi police will question the colleagues of Bhingare on Monday to know if he was ‘seemingly depressed’. “Also, we will scan his bank accounts, their cellphones, SMS and WhatsApp messages,” he said.

On Saturday, the police were informed after one of the neighbouring women visited their government quarters in afternoon to collect wheat flour from Ashwini, who ran a small scale business of milling grains. The woman first knocked their door, but when no one responded from inside, she slightly pushed the main door which was not bolted from inside but locked by ‘safety chain’, said an officer. The woman was shocked to see the motionless bodies of Bhingare family and alerted neighbours and later the Kherwadi police were informed. The cops broke open the door breaking the safety chain and took the custody of four bodies which were later sent to Sion hospital for postmortem. Their autopsy reports revealed that all the deaths occurred in a very short interval of time in the wee hours of Saturday. The bodies were handed over to Bhingare's brother who lives in Navi Mumbai and works in a private firm.

A senior police officer said, “The throat and wrist of Bhingare were slit and his wife and sons were poisoned. It is yet not clear whether these were self-inflicted injuries on Bhingare’s body. We are probing into the matter. All the bodies were neither decomposed nor any foul smell was emanating from their one-room kitchen government quarters.”

“We are not sure if Bhingare, first, poisoned his family before ending his life or all of them committed suicide together under depression,” the officer said.

The police have sealed the house where Bhingare family lived.