Madurai family was trustworthy: Neighbours

The incident happened late on Sunday when a family of 8 persons consumed milk laced with poison and five of them dying on the spot. One more woman died in the hospital and later two are still battling for life at the ICU in Madurai GRH. Only Praveen, a first year engineering student, was not involved in the suicide bid.

Praveen had lost his father and a sister. His mother and another relative are under treatment. On Monday, the bodies were handed over to their kin after the post-mortem.

According to police sources, the family’s suicide note was addressed to the Madurai Collector. In that they had stated that they were committing suicide due to mounting debts and that no one was responsible for their decision.

Neighbours and kin said that they were really jolted when they came to know about the tragedy. They said it was a very hard working and trustworthy family and everyone had reposed faith in them.

Ravindran, a kin and neighbour explained, how the family had come up the hard way. He said they had started off with a fancy store. When they won the confidence of the neighbours, they began collecting chit money. Its success made them foray into other businesses like setting up a grocery shop and a primary school.

Later, they also started a construction company and their chit fund business spread wings. More than 1,000 people had joined in the chit business and so far no one was cheated, said Ravindran.

Suresh, another neighbour, said that he had joined a Rs.1000 chit and had also completed it. When he asked for his money, they had informed him that the money would be paid to him on Monday. He was taken aback when he learnt about the family suicide. “The chit was a seventh one with the family. Only now they have not repaid it,” said Suresh.

Kannan, who runs a tea shop in the same area, said that with the money collected through the chits the family had started expanding their primary school and also invested in real estate. As they could not get the profit on time, they had committed suicide to avoid shame, said Kannan.

Police sources revealed that the family had gone to Courtallam on Saturday. While returning, they had dropped Praveen at his college in Virudhunagar and returned to Madurai. They had earlier decided to commit suicide at Kodaikanal but had changed their plan and went ahead with their decision to do it in their house, added police sources.

Meanwhile, around 25 people, who had lost their money, assembled in front of their house and were looking for solutions. There was a talk doing its rounds that the properties would be sold and they would be compensated. Will the money be given before Deepavali, asked a woman with a quizzical look.