Burari deaths: Delhi Crime Branch to conduct psychological autopsy of 11 Bhatia family members

New Delhi: Delhi Crime Branch will conduct psychological autopsy of 11 members of the Bhatia family who were found dead under mysterious circumstances at their residence in North Delhi's Burari, news agency ANI said quoting sources.

Psychological autopsy is conducted to explore external factors like mental disorder which could even have led the deceased to death.

A CCTV footage on Thursday showed some members of the family bringing stools and wires that were used for their hanging, even as police recovered 11 diaries that were maintained over a period of 11 years.

The content of the diaries, which had instructions such as "keep water in a cup. When it will change colour, you will be saved", matched with the way the alleged suicides happened. Police said that the family was not expecting to die and thought that "the earth will shake" and "there will be thunder in the sky", following which they will be saved.

Police said that the fact that there were 11 diaries maintained over a period of 11 years is a coincidence and it is not in any way related to the deaths of the 11 family members.

On Wednesday, the police suspected that the Bhatia family might have been suffering from 'shared psychosis.' The victims' neighbours, however, said that the ill-fated family members were very helpful, though they mostly kept to themselves and never talked about their family matters.

Ten of the 11 members of the Bhatia family were found hanging from an iron-mesh in the ceiling on Sunday, while the body of 77-year-old Narayan Devi, the head of the family, was lying on the floor in another room of the house.

Devi's daughter Pratibha (57), her two sons Bhavnesh (50) and Lalit Bhatia (45) were also among the deceased. Bhavnesh's wife Savita (48) and their three children - Meenu (23), Nidhi (25), and Dhruv, aged 15, too were found dead.

Lalit Bhatia's wife Tina (42) and their 15-year-old son Shivam were also among those found dead. Pratibha's daughter Priyanka (33), who was engaged last month and would have married by the end of this year, was also found hanging.

(With inputs from PTI)