Ahmedabad: Four of family murdered in Viratnagar

Four members of a family were found murdered in a house in Viratnagar on Tuesday evening. The victims were identified as Sonal Marathi, 37, her children Pragati, 15, and Ganesh, 17, and Sonal's paternal grandmother, Subhadra, 75.

The bodies, which bore stabbing and blunt force wounds, were found in a decomposed state. Police officers at the crime scene say Sonal's husband, Vinod Marathi, is the prime suspect.

He is a loading rickshaw driver, and has been missing for the past few days. The two murdered teens were preparing for their board exams, investigators said.

Investigators also suspect that the victims were first poisoned, stabbed and then dragged into different rooms. Each victim seems to have been stabbed 40 to 50 times. The family had moved into this house only recently, from Nikol.

DCP Zone 5 Achal Tyagi said Sonal's mother, Ambu Marathi, had filed a missing persons complaint two days ago, as her daughter and the other family members were unreachable. When police personnel went to inquire at Sonal's house at Divyaprabha Society in Viratnagar, they found the house locked.

One of the police officers managed to pry open a window and got the stench of decomposing flesh. He called a team from Odhav police station, who then forced entry into the house and found the bodies, all at different spots.

A senior police official aware of Ambu Marathi's complaint said Vinod often fought with Sonal over petty issues. Two months ago, Vinod had even stabbed Sonal, but she lied in the medicolegal case saying she was hurt in an accident. Odhav police registered a complaint of murder and began an investigation.

Cops say two bodies were found in two bedrooms, one was in a bathroom and the other outside the bathroom. Police officers say, from the state of decomposition, that the killings may have taken place around four days ago. "The murderer may have poisoned the victims first, hit them with a blunt object and then stabbed them. The family had only recently shifted to this house in Viratnagar from the Nikol area," said a senior police official.