According to the police, Dharambir first strangled his wife Sudesh and the children. He is then said to have sprinkled fuel on the bodies and himself and set the family on fire. The charred bodies were discovered by Dharambir's elder brother, Rajinder.

Recounting the sequence of events, Rajinder says: ``Abhay Kant Jha, one of our neighbours, came to the house in the morning asking for Dharambir. He knocked on their door for quite sometime and when no one responded he called me. When we peered through a crack in the door, we realised that there was some smoke in the room.'' Once the door was broken, Rajinder realised that his brother and sister-in-law were sleeping in a connected room. The door to this room was also locked from the inside and had to be broken open.

``Once we broke the second door, we were blinded by the smoke,'' adds Rajinder. ``We found the bodies on the bed and they were all burnt. We promptly dialled 100, but it was too late. There were bangles lying scattered in the room.'' Staying on the first floor of their A2-64 Mohan Garden house, Dharambir made stove pins for a living. All his three children were said to be studying in the local school. ``As a family we discussed business and he always said everything was fine,'' says Rajinder.

``In fact, last night we had some guests and Dharambir joined us for a cup of tea. He was fine, laughing and talking as usual.'' According to the police, however, Dharambir suffered a serious setback in his business recently. Police officials say that he took the drastic step because of the financial setback. From a family of four brothers, Dharambir lived in the upper portion of the house in Mohan Garden, an unauthorised colony. He shared the house with his elder brother and younger brother Suresh. While Rajinder and his family lived in the ground floor, Suresh used a room adjacent to Dharambir's.