11 Death 11 Scary facts about Mass suicide of Delhi family

Chilling and strange details have come up during the investigation into the death of 11 of a family in north Delhi's Burari. 11 Scary facts have been got to the police investigation, which are below:

1.Salvation notes

Police recovered handwritten notes about "attaining salvation", found in two registers, have foxed the investigators who said that they have not seen anything like this earlier. "There is a talk about 'badh tapasya', which indicates that one has to get into a formation like a banyan tree whose branches are hanging. The notes state that by doing this, God would be happy," the officer said. In pic: A policeman carries papers of postmortem reports, of the family of 11 members.

2.The family was preparing for a wedding

The relatives said the Bhatia family was gearing up for the wedding of Priyanka who got engaged last month. She was among those found dead. The 33-year-old, who worked for an IT company in Noida, discussed her upcoming wedding with cousins the evening before she was found dead. Around 11 pm, she was talking about shopping for the wedding, reported NDTV.

3.Protruding pipes

Some residents of the area where 11 members of a family were found dead at their residence in north Delhi have claimed the 11 pipes jutting out the side wall of the house have an "occult meaning", baffling police. Locals claimed that the 11 pipes were an outlet for "the souls of the deceased". However, a neighbour said the family, which was into plywood business, had installed the pipes so that toxic fumes from the chemicals applied on plywood could be released through those. The police, however, have dismissed any link between the pipes and the deaths.

4.The deaths

The police said that initial reports indicate suicide although the matter was being probed. However, the post-mortem report showed no sign of struggle. Ten of the 11 members of the Bhatia family were found hanging from an iron-mesh in the ceiling on Sunday, while the body of 77-year-old Narayan Devi, the head of the family, was lying on the floor in another room of the house. The deceased had their mouth taped and faces covered with pieces of cloth cut from a single bed-sheet. Only Devi' face was not covered.

5.Victims of shared psychotic disorder

As part of the investigation into the deaths, investigators have said that they found five side-tables which were kept side-by-side. Considering that ten people hung themselves from the overhead wire mesh, it is being speculated that the family may have been suffering from 'shared psychotic disorder'.

6.One man's delusions

According to police, Narayan Devi's youngest son Lalit Bhatia, 45, plotted the "mass suicide" and wrote down the notes with "instructions". He began writing these notes in 2015. The notes indicate that at some point the family had tried to organise a "meeting" with Lalit’s father who died ten years ago. "It appears that Lalit had been hallucinating that his father was giving instructions to the family through him," The Times of India quoted an officer who studied the diaries, as saying. There are also reports that assert his liking for spiritual and mystical literature apart from stating that he practised reiki, which is a Japanese form of alternative medicine. It is also being reported that he had lost his voice after suffering an injury and used to communicate even with his customers by writing on a notepad.

7.Explaining the inexplicable

One of the notes by Lalit predicted doom and advised the family that they would be saved. The entry read: "Antim samay mein, aakhri ichha ki purti ke waqt, aasman hilegi dharti kaanpigi, us waqt tum ghabrana mat, mantra ka jaap badha dena, mein aakar utar loonga aur ko bhi utarne mein madad karunga (in your last hours, while your last wish is fulfilled, the sky will open up and the earth will shake, don't panic but start chanting the mantra louder. I will come to save you and others)." Lalit Bhatia allegedly told the family that he received this message from his father. The family was very superstitious and apparently believed that the end of the world was coming.

8.The roti conundrum

The police said it was evident that the family was blindly following all these "directions". One of the last notes reads that that the mother would feed rotis to everyone (ma sabko roti khilayegi). This has been corroborated as the family ordered 20 rotis from a nearby shop for which it paid Rs 200. They didn't order any vegetables. The police have found the restaurant bill in the house. The food was delivered around 10.40pm.

9.Need for psychological autopsy

A senior doctor from the department of psychiatry at AIIMS suggested that a "psychological autopsy" be conducted in the case to get to the bottom of the mystery. "In layman's term, a psychological autopsy would mean interacting with the victims' relatives, friends and acquaintances to see if there was any pattern - like if they were reading the same book or similar themed books or were part of any cult or were influenced by any occultist," he said.

10.Baffled investigators and psychiatrists

Asked what are the factors that drive people to commit suicide en masse, the doctor said: "People who are emotionally very unstable, gullible or vulnerable are prone to enter into suicide pacts". Generally there are several commonalities in such cases, whether of age, religion or some other aspect. "In the Burari case, there is an entire spectrum of age from 15 to 77. And the emotional status of a young person is very different from a middle-aged or old person. Also the number 11 in this case is rather overwhelming for committing such acts," he said.

11.Cases of mass suicide

Bhawna Barmi, senior clinical psychologist at Fortis Escorts Hospital in Okhla, said: "A common theme in majority of suicidal cults is that they believe in an apocalyptic theology." "Mass or cult suicides occur mostly in groups that feel stuck in their lives and they believe that they are unable to control the consequences of their life. Hence, they often believe that death is the only possible option," she said.