Four of family found dead in Dhenkanal

Odisha Sun Times Bureau

Dhenkanal, Apr 1:

In the second such incident in Odisha in the last one month, four members of a family in the Mahisapat locality under the Town Police Station limits here were found dead under mysterious circumstances early this morning.

According to reports, Arjuni Sahu, the head of the family, brought the bodies of his wife Shakuntala, two sons Smruti Ranjan and Ashish and daughter Rosalin to the district headquarters hospital in the morning hours. However, the doctors at the hospital declared them ‘brought dead’.

“The father has claimed that his wife and children died after consuming poison. But he is not sure which poison they had consumed. It cannot be said at this stage whether the deceased had consumed the poison or they were poisoned. The cause of the death would be ascertained only after the post mortem. We have reported the matter to the Town Police,” said Jagannath Das, doctor at the district headquarters hospital here.

On his part, Arjuni said that his wife Shakuntala Sahu had told him before being rushed to the hospital that all of them had taken 12-15 tablets each of “Lariago”(an allopathic drug prescribed for treatment of malaria). He said the family was going through a disturbed phase as his married daughter Rosalin was putting up with them.

However, Arjuni’s role is under suspicion, Town police sources said and added that the bodies have been sent for post-mortem.