Couple had frequent fights, police probe infidelity angle
TRAGIC Three-year-old youngest daughter sole survivor in family of five
NEW DELHI: When three-yearold Bhavna failed to get any response from her family on Monday morning while trying to fetch her toothbrush, she had no inkling of the horror that awaited her inside.
The youngest daughter of Ravinder and Chanda Kanojia was, fortunately, away with her grandmother at the family’s ancestral house a few metres down the same lane when her siblings and mother were killed by her father.
She is now the sole survivor of what used to be a family of five.
“Chanda used to wake up early. We all knew that,” said a neighbour who did not wish to be named. “So when Bhavna kept knocking and there was no response, we all realised something was amiss.”
“The couple’s neighbours said they used to fight on a regular basis and there was something evidently wrong with their marriage,” said a senior police officer. They had been yet another fight on Sunday evening.
Since there was no response, Ravinder’s elder brother Kishore decided to enter the house from the terrace. Here, he discovered Ravinder’s body, hanging from a rope.
“When I went to Chanda’s room, I saw her lying on a cot with her head smashed,” Kishore said. “Their daughters Yashika and Nandini were lying in the same condition on another cot in the room.”
Hailing from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, the couple had moved to the Dwarka house recently as their larger property was being renovated.
They own a couple of drycleaning shops in and around Dwarka.
The police said they had reasons to be suspicions of infidelity on Ravinder’s part and Chanda’s apparent irritation at the renovation of her ‘actual house’ may have triggered the blood bath.
“Ravinder was considered more or less a teetotaller. Despite that, a bottle of liquor was recovered stashed in a corner of the terrace where he hung himself,” another officer added. Investigations in the case are currently underway.