Sumit Kumar had been battling drug addiction and killed his family due to financial distress, police said. (Express photo: Gajendra Yadav)Three days after allegedly murdering his wife and three children, Sumit Kumar (37) was arrested by Ghaziabad Police from Karnataka early Wednesday morning. Police said he admitted to drugging his wife Anshu Bala (33) and their children, five-year-old Prathmesh and four-year-old twins Arav and Akriti, before slitting their throats inside his Indirapuram home.
Sumit later uploaded a confessional video on his family WhatsApp group claiming he would commit suicide after the crime, and then left the city via train. “I want to be given the harshest punishment possible,” he told reporters while being taken away by police.
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Asked why he killed his family, he said, “I don’t know.” Several teams had been formed to track Sumit’s movements.
“We arrested him within 72 hours near Udupi in Karnataka, and brought him to Ghaziabad. He said it was becoming difficult for him to provide for his family due to financial distress and his drug habit. So he decided to kill them. Further questioning will take place,” said Upendra Agarwal, Senior Superintendent of Police (Ghaziabad).
Police said Sumit initially wanted to poison his family but feared that one of them might wake up and alert the others. He purchased a box of knives from a local store and decided to slit their throats after drugging them using sleeping pills, police claimed. Police said Sumit first killed his elder son and then the twins. His wife allegedly resisted because she woke up from her sleep, police said.
Sumit claimed he had been battling drug addiction since college and was trying to quit. He said he was in contact with a local chemist, Mukesh, who would supply him drugs of some form. The chemist has been arrested.
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“He had told his family about his financial problems and that he was even ready to commit robberies to sustain them. The family warned him against it,” said Agarwal.
Police said Sumit cheated the chemist of Rs 1 lakh by pretending to help him with online transactions. He withdrew Rs 50,000 to purchase ‘cyanide’ and gave the rest to his landlord and wife. Before the crime, he allegedly consumed bhang, Sumit told police.
“After committing the crime, he did not have the will to live and wanted to commit suicide. He reached the railway station on Sunday, where he met an agent and boarded the train. He said he consumed cyanide in the bathrooom, but it was fake. He claims he thought of jumping on the tracks but could not muster the courage,” Agarwal said.
Sumit headed till Udupi, where he deboarded on a whim, police said. Having studied at Manipal University, he possibly wanted to establish contact with an acquaintance, police said.
