Burari deaths: Police question mason who installed 11 pipes, his daughter

Team Udayavani, Jul 7, 2018, 11:37 AM IST

New Delhi: Seeking to unravel the mystery behind the deaths of 11 members of a family in Burari, the Delhi Police has questioned their employees, including a contractor who had installed 11 pipes at the house and his daughter, a senior officer said today.

The police questioned Geeta, the eldest daughter of Kunwar Pal, who according to reports was the “self-styled god-woman” Lalit, one of the dead family members, had met.

Geeta was questioned for about two hours today and she denied having any association with the Chundawat family.

Her father, Kunwar Pal, said constructing a window was not feasible and therefore, pipes were put for ventilation.

The police is questioning the relatives, neighbours and employees of the family. More than 100 people have been quizzed so far.

According to the reports, Lalit had met Geeta recently, and he had told her that he would meet her again on July 10.

Geeta told the police she had nothing to do with the deaths and had never even exchanged an SMS with any of the family members, a fact confirmed by the call details of the cellphones recovered by the police from an almirah in the house on July 1.

“The only link Geeta has with the family is that she is the daughter of the mason. She told police she had never met Lalit,” the officer said.

Geeta told the police that she was suffering from hypertension and several news channels had visited her and she said something “out of anger”, which was reported.

“She said she had not entertained any news channels and was being portrayed in a wrong light. She had even suffered a paralytic stroke due to hypertension 10 years ago,” the officer said.

He said she was “quite scared” during the questioning and told police that she sings in kirtans since she can sing well.

“Locals come to her for conducting poojas at her home. She also said that she performs poojas for sick children to cast off evil eye. She was never contacted by Lalit or any other member of the family and did not even know them,” the investigator said.

The police questioned her father Kunwar Pal about the mystery of the pipes – all 11 of them protruding from a wall facing an empty plot, where there was no water outlet and the 11 rods on the entrance of the house.

The Chundawat family had denied any link between the 11 pipes and the deaths.

“Pal said the pipes were put since the family knew that the construction would begin on the adjacent plot and building a window won’t be a feasible idea. They had asked him to put pipes for ventilation,” the officer said.

He maintained that it was a “coincidence” that there were 11 pipes and 11 rods.

“The PVC pipes were left from some other construction work that was carried out and his labourers had put them without putting much thought into whether they were bent or they were 11 in number. Similarly, the 11 rods were also put because of the space and not because they had anything to do with the vaastu of the house,” he added.

He said he had known the family for more than 22 years and was on good terms with Gopal Das, the patriarch of the Chundawat family. For 10 years, Pal had shifted for Bawana since a lot of construction work was happening there.

He returned to Burari in 2011 and met the family and was informed Das had passed away. The family assured him they would contact him if there was any work that was needed to be done.

In 2017, the family was planning to get their house renovated and called him for it. He told police that he learnt about the deaths of the members on July 1 when he was about to leave Delhi to attend a relative’s wedding.

He told the police that the family owed him money for the construction work and he would now contact Dinesh Singh Chundwat, Lalit’s elder brother, to settle his dues.

Ten of the 11 members of the deceased family were found hanged from an iron-mesh in the ceiling of the house on Sunday, while the body of 77-year-old Narayan Devi, the head of the family, was lying on the floor in a room of the house.

Her daughter Pratibha (57) and her two sons Bhavnesh (50) and Lalit (45) were among the deceased.

Bhavnesh’s wife Savita (48) and their three children – Maneka (23), Neetu (25), and Dhirendra (15) were also found dead.

The others found hanging were Lalit’s wife Tina (42), their 15-year-old son Dushyant and Pratibha’s daughter Priyanka, who was engaged last month and was supposed to get married by year-end.

On Wednesday, the police retrieved the CCTV camera footage that showed some members bringing stools and wires that were used for their hanging. They had also found 11 diaries which had “psychological musings” and things about attaining “road to God”.