Months after Burari suicides, Dayalbagh residents wake up to similar tragedy

On Saturday morning, residents of Dayalbagh, a Faridabad colony around 19-km from Delhi’s India Gate, woke up to a horror similar to what Burari had witnessed a few months ago.

In July this year, 11 members of a north Delhi family had committed suicide inside their Burari house, grabbing headlines across the country.

In an eerily similar case, the residents of Dayalbagh learnt on Saturday that a family of four had killed themselves inside flat number 100 of Aman Apartments.

Around 9.00am, a police team broke open the door of the house and found a man and his sisters hanging from the ceiling fans in their rooms. The news of the suicides spread likely wildfire in the area, attracting hundreds of locals who discussed in hushed tones how the case was similar to that of north Delhi.

Locals also discussed among themselves how no one came to know even though the siblings looked to have taken their lives two days ago.

The Beige painted building of Aman apartments later saw locals, policemen, forensic experts and government officials swarming it throughout the day.

Ram Prakash, a neighbour of the Mathews family, was the first person to spot blood seeping out of their house’s main entrance door. ‘Scared’ by the sight, Prakash alerted the caretaker of the building, Rajkumar, who then called out to others in the building and the police was informed.

When the police broke open the house, the stench emanating from the house made it difficult for anyone to stand close to the doors. Prakash, who runs a printing press, said that there was no stench from the house as the doors were locked.

“May be they had sprayed deodorants or lit incense sticks to suppress the foul smell. The windows and vents above the doors were all covered with curtains. My house shares its wall with the Mathews but surprisingly neither my wife nor me sensed anything wrong. They did not speak to anyone so we did not know what problem they were in,” he said.

The lane in which the Mathews lived mostly had builder flats, while the other side of the main road — that connects the residential area to the main highway — had independent flats.

RP Joshi, who was present outside the Mathews’ Dayalbagh residence on Saturday when HT reached the area, said that the family did not talk much to neighbours but they were in dire need of money. He said recently he had lent them a sum of ₹24,000. “If they interacted with us, we could have helped them or at least tried to understand their problems,” he said.

Neighbours were also heard murmuring about the Burari mass suicide which they were reminded of on Saturday
morning.