Five members of a family end life in Mysore hotel

A Malayalam television serial actress and four of her family members were found dead in an apparent suicide pact at a hotel in Mysore near here.

Police said the dead include Bindu, 31, who acted in television serials in Kerala under the screen name Nayana, her father K B K Panicker, 65, her mother Rathnamma, 57, her elder brother Balakrishna Panicker, 33, and younger sister Indu, 29.

However, Bindu’s daughter Anupama, 7, and her neice Akhila, 5, who were with the family, have survived the tragedy and are undergoing treatment at a private hospital.

Mysore police told reporters yesterday that the tragedy came to light on Sunday when Anupama and Akhila and woke up in the afternoon and alerted the hotel staff that their elders were not waking up.

After making frantic efforts to wake up their elders, the children screaming and crying called the reception over the telecom, a police official said.

When the hotel staff rushed to the room, they realized that the five elders of the family were dead. Immediately informed the jurisdictional police, who rushed to the hotel room and began investigation.

The police have recovered a powdery substance and sleeping tablets from the hotel room. The deceased are believed to have consumed cola laced with the powdery substance, which is believed to be poison. Apparently, the elders had made the children also consume cola mixed with sleeping pills. But, the children have now been declared out of danger.

The police also they also found stains in the bathroom indicating that the deceased had vommitted blood.

Police said Bindu’s husband Irwin Peter works in London while Indu’s husband Vijayan Thambi works in Sharjah. Bindu’s father Panicker was an ex-serviceman and the family hailed from Alapuzzha in Kerala.

The family had checked into the hotel on September 4, a Thursday around 9 pm and went sight-seeing around Mysore on Friday and Saturday in a hired car. After visiting Brindavan Gardens and other tourist spots for the next two days, the family even consulted a gynaecologist in a private hospital.

On Saturday night, the family had ordered for dinner in their hotel room around 10.30 pm.

The family’s relatives from Kerala had arrived in Mysore and the police authorities are expected to hand over the dead bodies after the post-mortem.
Though no suicide note has been left behind, the police suspect financial problems to be among the likely causes for the family members to end their lives in a suicide pact.