Man kills children\, commits suicide: Heard mother’s screams\, rushed upstairs to find kids dead\, says neighbour

Man kills children, commits suicide: Heard mother’s screams, rushed upstairs to find kids dead, says neighbour

Madhur Malani allegedly strangled his children around 5 pm Sunday while his wife was at a market.

Written by Jignasa Sinha | New Delhi | Updated: February 11, 2020 2:46:01 am
Man kills children, commits suicide: Heard mother’s screams, rushed upstairs to find kids dead: Neighbour Madhur Malani later jumped in front of a train

At 6.30 pm Sunday, residents of North West Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh watched in disbelief as Rupali Malani, a second-floor resident, screamed: “Madhur mere bachon ko maar ke bhaag gaya.” While some neighbours dialled 100, others ran to her house where her kids, aged 6 and 14, lay dead.

Madhur Malani allegedly strangled his children around 5 pm Sunday while his wife was at a market. He then allegedly committed suicide by jumping in front of a Metro train at Haiderpur at 5.43 pm. The post-mortem of Malani and his children — Shreyansh (6) and Samiksha (14) — was conducted Monday.

Their neighbour Anshu Gangwar, who made the PCR call, recalled the horror: “Their mother was standing in the balcony and shouting, I rushed upstairs and saw her crying. I saw the injuries on the necks of her children and called police.”

Police joined the dots of the murder and suicide when Rupali told them that her husband was depressed and unemployed. “We had been informed about a suicide at Haiderpur Metro station two kilometres away from the spot, and no suicide note was found at the station. The body was lying unidentified for over an hour. We sent a picture of the deceased to the woman, who identified him as her husband,” said a police officer.

The children, police claimed, were strangled, and Samiksha was also smothered with a pillow.

Malani was a trader, who lost his business and started a sandpaper factory, which didn’t work out either. For the last six months, he had been unemployed. Police said he “often invested in start-ups but had been staying at home for six months. He borrowed money from his father and brother, who live in Model Town”.

A day after the incident, residents were unable to answer anxious questions from their children. “We are shaken up and the younger children are obviously scared. It was brutal,” said a neighbour. Another neighbour said the family moved to Shalimar Bagh three years ago, and that “Shreyansh was a chirpy one, who liked to play cricket and hide-and-seek”, while “Samiksha was a smart and athletic child who used to go for tuition and wanted to ace her board exams”.