Couple, 3 Children Found Hanging In House In Suspected Mass Suicide

The bodies of a farmer, his wife, and three children were found in their house in a village in Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh on Monday, police said.

Prima facie, it is a case of suicide, an official said.

The bodies of Rakesh Dodwa (27), his wife Lalita Dodwa (25) and their sons Prakash (7) and Akshay (5) were found hanging next to each other from the ceiling of their kuchha house with rope, while the body of their daughter, Laxmi (9), was found lying on the floor, an official said.

Citing preliminary information, police had initially stated that all five bodies were hanging in the house. However, a villager later informed the police that the couple and their two sons were found hanging, while the girl's body was lying on the floor of their house in Ravdi village.

"The information about the death of five people at Ravdi village in Sondwa tehsil was received at 9.20 AM on Monday," the police official said.

A team headed by the Sub Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) of Alirajpur has been constituted to probe the incident as no suicide note was found at the spot, he said.

Prima facie, the incident occurred between 7 pm on Sunday and 6 am on Sunday.

According to police, the family head Rakesh Dodwa was a farmer. He also used to work as a mason in Gujarat.

A dog squad and a forensic team have reached the spot and collected fingerprints. A forensic team from Indore is also reaching the spot, police said, adding that the postmortem of bodies is videographed. 

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