11-year-old poisoned by debt-ridden father cleared Class 5 on Monday, was quite happy

Eleven-year-old Mahi was jubilant on March 11 when she came to know that she cleared her class 5 examinations and was eager to go to her school on March 12 to collect her report card. The family on Monday night was playing Ludo when Mahi’s mother Shashi went to sleep along with her six-year-old son.

“It was around 11.30pm on Monday when my daughter-in-law went to the other room along with her son. Mahi, her brother Tushar and Sundar stayed in another room. Around 2.45am, Shashi came running to my room and she was shouting... I went to Sundar’s room and was stunned to see him hanging and my two grandchildren lying dead on the floor,” Bhagwan Singh, Sundar’s father, said.

“Mahi was planning to get up early on Tuesday to go to her school and fetch her report card. However, destiny wrote her report card the same night. I know how painful it is to bring down the hanging body of my son on my shoulders. But I had to carry two more...” he said.

Forty-year-old Sundar, battling a financial crisis, allegedly murdered his son Tushar and daughter Mahi, before killing himself at his house in Ghaziabad’s Sihani near Raj Nagar Extension early Tuesday.

Mahi studied at a private school in Nandgram and had secured 77.7% marks in her class 5 examinations.

The news of Mahi’s death came as a shock to the school staff and teachers. “She was one of the most disciplined and cheerful students we had. She would participate in all extra-curricular activities. The news has come as a shock to us,” Neelam Singh, the principal of Mahi’s school, said.

Fourteen-year-old Tushar, Mahi’s specially abled brother, had joined a special school in Nandgram and had been regular with school.

“After he got admitted here, he was showing signs of improvement. He is a quick learner and had started solving puzzles. He was learning to do daily activities. His cousin Aman (Sundar’s brother Manoj’s son) also has the same disability and both got admitted here,” Anadi Shukla, director of the school, said.