Chennai: Five children and four adults of two families committed suicide in separate incidents in Villupuram and Dindigul districts.
According to sources, M Arun (33) and his wife Sivagami (33) in Villupuram committed suicide after killing their three children by consuming cyanide last night in Sitherikarai. The extreme step was taken allegedly due to debts accumulated because of Arun’s addiction to lottery tickets.
His three daughters were identified as Priyadarshini (4), Yuvasri (3) and Bharathi, who was three-months-old.
Arun had recorded a video citing the reason for suicide which he sent to his friends on social media.
On seeing the video, his friends and acquaintances rushed to his house and found the door locked from inside. They alerted the Villupuram taluk police station.
Police broke open the door, found Arun and his family members lying unconscious and rushed them to a government hospital in Mundiampakkam where they were declared dead on arrival.
In the video, Arun said he was ridden by debts due to the three-digit lottery tickets. He said he was unable to run his family with his income as a goldsmith. ”Please ban three-number lotteries in Villupuram. At least, ten people like me will survive,” he had said.
In an unrelated case, a family of four allegedly jumped in front of a moving train near Kodai Road junction in Dindigul district.
The bodies could not be identified immediately, However, an Aadhar card and diary identified the deceased as Uthira Barathi, Sangeetha, Abinayasree and Akash of Uraiyur in Trichy.
Railway Police found train tickets taken two days ago from Trichy to Kodai and bus tickets from Kodai to Kodaikanal in one of the victims’ pockets. A case has been registered.