Maharashtra: 9 from families of 2 brothers found dead in Sangli; lens on debt angle

KOLHAPUR: Nine members of the families of two brothers were found dead in two houses in Mhaisal town of Miraj tehsil in Sangli district on Monday afternoon. Police have recovered a note from one of the houses, but are not revealing details about its content.
However, sources said the police were primarily investigating the financial angle behind the suspected suicides.The sources said both families were under severe debt and could not repay their loans.
The brothers - Popat Vhanmore (52), a teacher, and Manik (49), a veterinary doctor - lived half a kilometre away from each others. One of their houses is an ancestral one.
In one house, the bodies of Popat, his wife Sangita (48) and daughter Archana (30) were recovered. In the other house, the bodies of Manik, his mother Akkatai (72), his wife Rekha (45), children Anita (28) and Aditya (15), and Popat's son Shubham (28) were recovered. Manik's wife Rekha was also a veterinary doctor.
Speaking to TOI, district superintendent of police Dikshitkumar Gedam said, "We have recovered a note from the house. We are investigating two or three angles."
Sources close to the investigation said the note mentions three to four names.
Prima facie, the suspected suicides are due to poisoning. However, police said they were waiting for the post-mortem reports and the medical tests of the gut liquid. Besides the financial angle, police are also investigating whether any scripture or spiritual influence could have led the family members to take their lives.
The police are also probing the food poisoning angle. Relatives have said that all nine family members had dinner together at Manik’s house. No injury marks have been found on any of the bodies, a senior police official said. After no one from the family in one house stepped out till afternoon, neighbours grew suspicious and called the police.
Mhaisal town is located around 12km from Miraj, an important railway junction place. In 2017, 19 fetuses were recovered from a waste water stream during a probe into the death of a pregnant woman. A doctor was then arrested for female foeticide.