Techie who killed family held in Udupi

GHAZIABAD: The 37-year-old techie who killed his wife and three children before running away from his Gyan Khand 4 home three days ago was arrested from Udupi in Karnataka on Tuesday night. Sumit Kumar was produced in a local court on Wednesday and has been remanded in 14 days’ judicial custody.
At a press conference held in Police Lines, Sumit said: “I have committed a sin.Strictest punishment should be given to me.” He said the murders, committed on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, were not pre-planned and he had acted “in a fit of rage”. The police, however, said Sumit had been contemplating the murders and suicide for over one-and-a -half-weeks after he failed to get a new job.
The techie has allegedly confessed to murdering his wife Anshu Bala (32), a teacher with Mother’s Pride School, sons Prathmesh (5) and Arav (4), and daughter Akriti (4), by slitting their throats on Saturday night after giving them a drug-laced cold drink.
After the murders, he boarded a train from New Delhi railway station and recorded a confessional video from the toilet. In the video, which he shared on the family’s WhatsApp group on Sunday evening, Sumit claimed that he would commit suicide in the “next five minutes”. The techie told the cops that he attempted suicide by consuming what he thought was potassium cyanide. The drug failed to have any effect on him, he said.
In a change of plans, Sumit then thought of jumping from the moving train. But he could not muster the courage, he told police.
Cops have recovered the knife that Sumit used for killing his family. After the crime, he had tossed it into a bush near his home. Police also found some blood-stained clothes in the house.
The techie told the police he had last attended office on January 28. Sumit had joined a Bengaluru-based company in October last year. His family said he resigned earlier this year. After that, he started looking for jobs in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR.
“He was in a depressed state for the past three months and was anxious about not being able to provide education to his three children. He somehow paid the tuition fees of his eldest son Prathmesh after taking a loan from a friend. His twins (Arav and Akriti) could not be admitted to a play school because of shortage of funds. Sumit’s wife used to teach in a play school and she earned Rs 5,000 a month. But that was not enough for the family,” SSP, Ghaziabad, Upendra Kumar Agrawal said.
Police said after his video recording and ‘failed suicide attempt’ in the train, he extended his reservation to Thiruvananthapuram but got off at Udupi. He was traced through the surveillance system and with help of police at Udipi, he was arrested and brought to Ghaziabad.