In second such tragedy in Dhenkanal district in the last one month, four members of a family in the Mahisapat locality under the Town police station here were found dead under mysterious circumstances early on Tuesday morning.
Arjuni Sahu, the head of the family, brought the bodies of his wife Shakuntala, two sons Smruti Ranjan and Ashish and daughter Rosalin to the District Headquarters Hospital here in the morning hours. However, the doctors at the hospital declared them ‘brought dead’.
“Sahu has claimed that his wife and children died after consuming poison. But he is not sure what poison they had consumed. It cannot be said at this stage whether the deceased had consumed poison or they were poisoned. The cause of the death will be ascertained only after the post-mortem. We have reported the matter to the Town police,” said Dr Jagannath Das of the District Headquarters Hospital.
On his part, Arjuni Sahu said his wife Shakuntala had told him before being rushed to the hospital that all of them had taken 12 to 15 tablets each of ‘lariago’(an allopathic drug prescribed for treatment of malaria). He said the family was going through a disturbed phase as his married daughter Rosalin had left her in-laws’ house and was staying with them. However, Arjuni’s role is under suspicion, police sources said, adding that the bodies have been sent for post-mortem.