Hyderabad: A software engineer poisoned his wife and two children before killing himself in what appears to be a suicide pact.

The bodies of G. Satish (39), his wife G. Veda (35) and their children, G. Nishiket (9) and G. Nihar (5), were found in their flat in the Kushaiguda area in Hyderabad late on Saturday.

Police suspect that the couple resorted to the extreme step due to chronic ill-health of their children. Police found a suicide note from the flat in which the couple claimed that they decided to take the extreme step and that no one was responsible for their death.

In the suicide, the couple requested that no one should try to save them and that they be allowed to die peacefully.

The tragic incident came to light when Satish's brother-in-law Manikanta reached the apartment after he was not able to reach the couple over their mobile phones. He alerted the security guard and when there was no response to the ringing of the door bell. They used a ladder to climb into the balcony of the first floor flat and broke the rear door latch.

They found Satish dead in one room while his wife and children were lying dead on bed in another room.

Manikanta alerted police, who rushed to the scene and shifted bodies to Gandhi Hospital for autopsy. A suicide note was also recovered from the flat.

According to the couple's relatives, they were depressed over the ill-health of their children. Satish, hailing from Nizamabad district, had married Veda, a resident of Siddipet district, in 2012. Their second son Nihal was autistic. Recently, Nishiket was diagnosed with Meningitis. He was having difficulty hearing.

Preliminary investigations by the police revealed that Satish served food laced with potassium cyanide to his wife and two children and after making sure that they had died, he too consumed the same food.

(IANS)