A
35-year-old man allegedly murdered 14 members of his family, including seven
children, with a butcher’s knife before committing suicide outside India’s
financial capital of Mumbai, police said on Sunday.
The
attack happened after family members gathered late on Saturday at one of their
homes in Thane, some 32 kilometres (20 miles) from Mumbai, for a family
function, police said.
“The
attacker, Hasnin Anwar Warekar, hung himself after slitting the throats of all
other family members including his parents,” a Thane police spokesman, Gajanan
Laxman Kabdule said.
The
sole survivor of the attack – Warekar’s sister – was taken to hospital after
neighbours heard her screaming for help after midnight and alerted police.
“We
still haven’t been able to speak with the attacker’s 21-year-old sister, the
lone survivor of the attack, who is in deep trauma at a city hospital,” Kabdule
said.
Warekar
attacked his family after apparently lacing their food with a sedative, according
to several local media reports.
But
the Indian Express newspaper said the chartered accountant stabbed his victims
after they went to bed, having all decided to spend the night at the house.
“Prima
facie evidence suggests that the accused bolted all the doors of the house and
murdered his family while they were asleep with a knife that we found near his
body,” Ashutosh Dumbre, joint commissioner of Thane police, was quoted saying.
Kabdule
said he could not confirm whether the victims had been sedated, saying
investigators were awaiting medical test results.
Television
footage showed men lifting bodies wrapped in sheets in to the back of an
ambulance, as crowds gathered outside the white-walled home.
Kabdule
said details of the attack “are still sketchy” along with the motive.
According
to the Press Trust of India news
agency, a property dispute was behind the killings, but Dumbre said initial
investigations have so far found no trigger for such an “extreme step”.
“In
our inquiry so far, no one has yet been able to give the reason for this,”
Dumbre told the ABP news channel.
“He
worked with a private company in Mumbai. There were no known financial troubles
or disputes and now we are hoping that the lone survivor can tell us something
about the trigger,” he said.
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