Preliminary police investigations into the killing of senior IAS officer Jagadananada Panda and four of his family members in a western Orissa village early this morning seems to be a case of murder-suicide with cops suspecting that Panda might have first killed his father, wife and two sisters and then shot him from a .32 bore pistol. Panda also tried to kill his son 22-year-old Sonu, who is battling for his life at a government hospital in Sambalpur.

The body of 53-year-old Panda, Protector General of Emigrants in the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, was found in his ancestral home of Deogaon in Bargarh district on Thursday morning along with his wife, his ageing father and two sisters. Police rushed to the two-story home in Deogaon village of western Orissa district of Bargarh in the morning, several hours after the killings.

"The sight was horrific, blood everywhere. It was ghastly," said a police official.

The cops based their suspicion after seizing a suicide note which did not actually say why he was committing suicide, but talked of transferring the ownership of prpoperties to family relatives after his death. "He seemed to be under depression. The note leads us in the direction that he had made up his mind to kill himself," Bargarh SP Ashok Biswal told 'The Indian Express'.

Panda's surviving mother, who slept in the upper floor of the house, rushed downstairs after she heard the gunshots. She found the bodies of her husband, her two daughters in two rooms. When she came out to the front verandah, she found Panda slumped in a chair and Panda’s wife lying lifeless in a pool of blood a little away. The pistol was lying a little away.

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