In a gruesome incident, three members of a family – the husband, wife, and their grown-up daughter – were found dead at their house in Mukkur, a village about 90 kilometres from Udhagamandalam. The family’s pet dogs were found poisoned to death inside the gates.

Villagers noticed a board hanging on the gate of the house, with a message that the family members had committed suicide. They also saw two dogs lying dead at the entrance. They went in and saw the bodies of the inmates of the house – Vetrivel (50), his wife Lakshmi (45), and daughter Manjubharathi (25) – hanging from the ceiling, and informed the police.

Police recovered the bodies and sent them for postmortem to Gudalur Hospital. They suspect that Vetrivel had committed suicide after ensuring that the wife and daughter were dead. But they haven’t completely ruled out the possibilities of murder.

Charred remains of documents were retrieved from the house. Preliminary inquiries revealed that Vetrivel, a farmer, had huge debts, and this is suspected to be the reason for the family’s suicides.