The incident occurred during the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, cops said.
A civil engineer, who was jobless for the last few months, allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison after slitting the throats of his teenage son and daughter with a tile cutter at their flat in a multistoried building in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal, police said. While his 16-year-old son died of his injuries, 14-year-old daughter's condition is said to be critical, they said.
His wife had also consumed poison with the man but survived.
The incident occurred during the intervening night of Friday and Saturday in Bhopal's Misrod area, they said.
Both the man (55) and his wife were in acute depression, according to a primary probe based on the latter's statements. Her statements also revealed that the couple had planned the entire episode nearly two to three days ago.
The police have also recovered a suicide note which says the man was unemployed for the past many months and that the family was going through acute financial crisis. "I was unable to pay the installments for our house and bear the expense my children's education," read the note. According to the note, he thought his children would not have a good future after his death, so he decided to kill them as well.
"The couple slit the throats of their children using a tile cutter and then consumed poison. While their 16-year-old son died, their daughter survived," Misrod Police Station Inspector Niranjan Sharma said.
The mother and daughter have been admitted to the government-run Hamidia hospital, while the bodies of the man and his son have been sent for post-mortem, he said.
A case has been registered in this connection, he added.