In a horrifying incident, seven members of a family, including three minors, were found hacked to death, at their home in Nai Basti area of Ghaziabad district. The deceased, identified as Satish Chandra Goel (65), a businessman, his wife Manju (62), son Sachin (40), daughter-in-law Rekha (38) and three grandchildren, Megha (13), Neha (10) and Aman (7), were butchered with a sharp-edged weapon.
The house was ransacked and cash and jewellery worth over `1.5 crore was stolen from the house. It appears that the murders had taken place somewhere between the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday.
The gory incident came to light on Wednesday morning when a paramedic went to the house to administer an injection to Manju Goel, who was suffering from a kidney ailment. Manju was to go for dialysis to Fortis Hospital in Delhi for which she had to be administered an injection before-hand. A paramedic was sent from the hospital to inject her.
When the paramedic reached the house in the densely populated locality of Nai Basti, he was horrified to find the whole family murdered and called the police. Police have registered a case of robbery and murder at Kotwali Police Station and investigations are on.
According to the police, Satish Goel, the head of the family ran a grocery store and was also involved in the real estate business. He had bought some disputed properties and had recently purchased a strategically-located corner property near loknath lassiwala and another property at National Highway-24 near Dasna jail. The police are investigating if property-related disputes could be the reason behind the murders.
Sachin Goel and his son Aman were found dead in the bedroom situated on the second floor of the house while his wife Rekha was found dead on the staircase. She might have been accosted by the killers while trying to reach the first floor of the house. She was stabbed in her abdomen and neck. She also sustained cuts on her arms, which suggests that she put up a fight before being overpowered by the murderers.
The bodies of Satish Goel and his two grandchildren, Medha and Honey were found on the floor in the first floor bedroom and Manju’s corpse was discovered in the kitchen.
The police recovered a big blood-stained knife meant to chop meat from the kitchen. Forensic experts who visited the site, lifted finger prints and also found shoe prints of two persons from the scene of the crime.
The dog squad was pressed into service but the dogs failed as the leads had died by the time the bodies were discovered.
Apart from a son, Satish Goel also had two married daughters. While the elder daughter lives in Faridabad, the younger one lives in the area.
The younger daughter’s husband Sachin said that the criminals had looted jewellery worth over a crore as his father-in-law did not have any bank locker.
Sachin also said that there was Rs 50 lakh in hard cash in the house as Manju Goel was to go for a kidney transplant soon. The criminals had taken all the valuables including cash and jewellery worth over Rs 1.5 crore.
Significantly, just ten days ago Satish Goel’s driver had made off with Rs 4 lakh and the police are looking into that angle too.
After inspecting the crime scene SSP Nitin Tiwari said: “The entire house was found ransacked. All the wardrobes were found broken and open which suggests that the criminals took all the valuables including cash and jewellery from the house. They butchered all the members to death as they put up a stiff resistance.
“The criminals used choppers and knives to kill the family as they all sustained sharp cuts all over their bodies, which proves that they put up a fight. We have registered a criminal case and a team of our best officers has been constituted to nab the criminals at the earliest.”
IG, RK Vishwakarma said that prima facie it seemed that the killers were known to the family.
“Around 10 pm one of Goel’s neighbours called him and enquired about loud sounds coming from his house. However, the former replied that it was a family matter. Besides normally there is no enmity with the children. So it seems that they were killed to eliminate evidence,” Vishwakarma added.