Techie spent 2 days with bodies before killing self

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: A day after the decomposed bodies of a couple and their two kids were found in an apartment in Kadugodi, the commotion in the area refuses to die out.

"It is shocking for us to believe that the family is no more. The couple was very friendly," said Vamsi, one of the neighbours.

"How can anyone kill an eight-month old baby?" he added down-cast.

On Wednesday night, based on a complaint of foul smell emanating from a ground-floor flat in Sai Garden apartments of Seegehalli, the jurisdictional police broke open the door to find decomposed bodies of Hemavathi, 29, and daughters Moksha Meghanayana, 2, and an eight-month old Srishti Sunayana. Hemavathi's husband, Veerarjuna Vijay, 32, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in the hall. Sesha Sai, younger brother of Vijay, said that the family hails from Hyderabad.

Vijay shifted to Bengaluru after his marriage to Hemavathi six years ago.

"Vijay, an MCA graduate, was working as a team lead for a software firm in Kundalahalli. Hemavathi had completed BTech. After the pandemic, Vijay was working from home and had to report to the office twice a week," Sesha Sai told News Trail.

 It was revealed that Vijay was earning a decent salary. The police are yet to ascertain the exact cause of their deaths. An officer from the investigation team said, "When we broke the door open, we found Vijay hanging from a ceiling fan. The bodies of his two daughters were lying in one of the rooms while a decomposed body of his wife was found inside the bedroom," he said.

The police said that they did not find any death note from the crime scene. Following an intense inspection by the FSL experts, it was revealed that Hemavathi's body was found to be in a decomposed state while the other bodies were still fresh. This roused the suspicion that Hemavathi had been dead for three days. The police later said that Hemavathi was strangled to death on July 31 by Vijay.

"We found fingerprints of Vijay on her neck which hints that he had strangled her. The colour of her body had started to change," said the police.

Vijay spent more than 24 hours along with the dead body and his two daughters inside the house.

"He strangled his daughters the next day using a rope and after a few hours hanged himself to death," the police added.

Sesha Sai said that he had been trying to contact Vijay and his wife since Tuesday, but their mobile phones were switched off. He requested a neighbour on Wednesday to check on the family following which the incident came to light.

Sai reached Bengaluru on Thursday morning and found his brother's family dead. Following preliminary investig ation, police suspect that the conflict between husband and wife may have resulted in the tragedy.

However the exact cause of the incident remains a mystery. The bodies have been sent for a postmortem analysis.