A 21-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman — both cousins involved in a romantic relationship — allegedly committed suicide by hanging from a tree at Deer Park in south Delhi’s Hauz Khas area early on Sunday morning. Ruling out any foul play, a police officer said the couple committed suicide after their families objected to the relationship. However, some locals claimed there might be some foul play in the incident. The man worked in a pizza shop in Lodhi Colony, while the woman was a baby-sitter, police said. Baljit Singh, Deer Park security guard, discovered the bodies at nearly 6:30 am on Sunday and informed the police.

“Their fathers were brothers. However, the boy and girl developed feelings for each other. Their families had asked them to end the relationship just two-three days ago,” a senior police officer said. He added that unable to live without each other, the couple decided to end their lives.

Police have initiated inquest proceedings in the case. They had earlier said that the duo were supposedly aged 17.

According to the police, a PCR call was received at 6:31 am from a security guard of Deer Park about the bodies. The man was dressed in a black T-shirt and blue jeans, while the 18-year-old woman was wearing a green dress, police said. Investigators are trying to ascertain the circumstances leading to the incident, an official said, adding no suicide note has been recovered so far.

Police said the man, a resident of Pilanji village, worked at a pizza shop in Lodhi Colony. His family told police that he left home around 2 pm on Saturday. The woman, a resident of Chattarpur Enclave who had been staying with her aunt in Humayunpur village for the past three days, left the house around the same time on Saturday to return to her own home for some work, police said.

Two broken phones were recovered near the spot. “The forensic team found a SIM card in one of the phones. We used this SIM card in another phone, which helped us identify the bodies and reach out to the families of the couple,” the senior police officer said. 

No suicide note has been recovered so far, he said. The official said the families of the deceased, in their statements, confirmed that the man and the woman were romantically involved, and given the nature of their relation, they were asked

to end it.

According to sources, a major hindrance in the investigation into the matter has been the lack of CCTV cameras inside the park. However, footage from nearby surveillance cameras were being scanned to work out the sequence of events there, they said. The forensic team conducted an on-site examination, and the bodies have been transferred to the morgue.

One of the daily visitors of the park said that it is not possible to die by suicide from the tree the two people were found on.  “We asked the police, and they said that it looked like a suicide, there was a rope kept there. The way they are saying, it doesn’t seem possible suicide by hanging from this, one can see the shape of the tree,” the visitor said.

Another visitor, said that the incident has scared the daily visitors and demanded punishment for those responsible for the act if it wasn’t suicide.