Man who killed wife, three children arrested

Ghaziabad, April 24 (IANS) A man who sedated and then stabbed to death his wife and their three children here after being jobless for three months has been arrested in Karnataka, police said on Wednesday.

Senior Superintendent of Police Upendra Agrawal said that Sumit Kumar was taken into custody from Udupi and had confessed that he committed the murders because he was under "great financial stress".

The gruesome killings took place on Sunday at Gyan Khand locality in Ghaziabad's Indirapuram where Kumar administered sleeping pills in liquid to his wife Anshu Bala (32), son Permesh (5) and twin children Akriti (4) and Aru (4).

He then stabbed them as they lay unconscious.

Agrawal said that Sumit Kumar told his interrogators that due to financial crisis he started consuming drugs. His wife could not get a good job due to which he could not get his twin children admitted in any play school.

He could hardly manage to admit his elder son in a school by borrowing Rs 29,000 from a friend.

Kumar said that he used to get drugs from the owner of a medical store.

Before eliminating his family, he bought potassium cyanide from the medical store owner and simultaneously siphoned off Rs 1 lakh from his online account.

Kumar fled the home and took a cab to reach the New Delhi railway station, from where he took a train to Kerala but got off at Udupi in Karnataka.

While in the train, he told his brother-in-law that he had killed his wife and children and was going to take his own life too.

The police could track his location through telephonic surveillance, said Agrawal.

The police recovered a mobile phone, a bag, a purse, Rs 5,300 in cash, a passport and a knife used in the crime which he had thrown into some bush in the Ghaziabad locality.