Five members of family found dead under mysterious circumstances in Delhi's Bhajanpura area; cause of deaths yet to be ascertained

New Delhi: Decomposed bodies of an e-rickshaw driver, his wife and three children were found inside their rented house in northeast Delhi’s Bhajanpura area under mysterious circumstances on Wednesday morning, police said. The deceased were identified as Shambhu Chaudhary (43), Sunita (37), Shivam (17), Sachin (14) and Komal (12), they said. Police received information at 11.16 am from Shambhu’s neighbours, who complained of a foul smell emanating from the house. Police personnel broke open the door of the house and found the five decomposed bodies. The bodies of the three children were found in one room and that of the couple in another room, police said. “Today, we received information that foul smell was emanating from a house. Police reached the spot and broke open the door which was locked from outside. They found the bodies of five people, including three children,” Joint Commissioner of Police (East) Alok Kumar said. “It is too early to say the reason for death. The bodies were in a highly decomposed state. The cause of death will be ascertained after postmortem,” Kumar said. The postmortem will be conducted at GTB hospital, police said. A forensic team has also been called in, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northeast) Ved Prakash Surya. “We are trying to find Shambhu’s mobile phone. We have not recovered any weapon from the house,” he said. “The house was also not ransacked. We are investigating the matter and going to file a case under Section 302 (murder),” Surya said. No note has been recovered from the spot, he said. Preliminary investigation revealed that Shambhu, who hailed from Supole district in Bihar, used to drive an e-rickshaw, the DCP said. He had been living in the rented house for the past five months. Deepa Verma, director of the Forensic Science Laboratory in Rohini, said, “Teams from physics, biology and photo departments visited the crime scene to collect samples. The postmortem examination will clear whether it was a murder or suicide. We have requested the police to preserve the bodies so that DNA samples can be collected.”