>
Ten members of a family were found hanging dead from an iron grill on the ceiling of their home in Delhi, India on Sunday. An 11th body which happens to be that of the oldest member of the family, 77-year-old Narayan Devi, was found on the floor with a noose around her neck.
Police have linked the incident to occult practices and are treating it as murder. Most of the bodies had their feet and hands bound, a cloth covered the eyes and their mouths were gagged with tape, CNN quoted senior North Delhi police officer Vinit Kumar as saying.
Seven of the dead were females and two teenage boys were amongst the victims.
“During search of the house, certain hand written notes have been found which point towards observance of some definite spiritual/mystical practices by the whole family,” police said in a statement.
“Coincidentally, these notes have strong similarity with the manner in which the mouths, eyes, etc, of the deceased were tied and taped,” the statement said.
The statement also said that the house had not been ransacked and that no valuables were found to be missing.
The bodies were discovered early Sunday morning, said Kumar.
Two of the the family members found dead, sons Bhavnesh and Lalit, ran a grocery and furniture store located on the ground floor of the family home, said Kumar.
The pair would open the grocery store at 6 a.m. But on Sunday, the shop didn’t open as usual, leading several customers to enter into the home to investigate, whereupon they found the bodies, he added.
Source: CNN