Prayagraj: When Saroj Devi’s daughter Suman when to call their neighbours, the Tiwaris, Saturday morning, she was in for a shock.
“She returned screaming and told us Rahul (Tiwari) was hanging from an iron angle (of a vent) in the house. She did not enter room and simply rushed back,” said Saroj, who was hosting her daughter-in-law’s baby shower Saturday, and recalled how everything had seemed normal when she had invited the Tiwaris for the function Friday evening.
What Suman has seen, however, was only a fragment of the tragedy that had engulfed the Tiwari family. Whereas 42-year Rahul Tiwari, a cattle trader, was found hanging in the family’s rented accommodation in Khagalpur village, a mere 35 kilometres from the Uttar Pradesh city of Prayagraj, the bodies of his wife and three daughters — 38-year-old Priti, 12-year-old Mahi, 8-year-old Pihu and 2-year-old Pohu — were recovered lying in a pool of blood, with their throats slit, when police reached the spot, said Kanchan Singh, another neighbour.
While police suspect that Tiwari killed his wife and daughters and then hung himself, some members of Tiwari and his wife’s families have brought in allegations of murder against two of Priti’s brothers — Pintu and Chandrashekhar — pointing at a long standing property dispute between them. Interestingly, though both Tiwari’s family and a sister of Priti’s, haver accused her brothers of being in the wrong — blaming them of forcefully evicting the family from their house in Kaushambi last year and usurping the property — her mother has blamed Tiwari of trying to appropriate his in-laws’ property.
“Prima facie, Rahul has killed his daughters and his wife first, and later hanged himself. It is yet to be ascertained whether the act was committed under influence or in consciousness. Viscera from all the bodies has been preserved and post mortem has been conducted, which has confirmed asphyxia due to ante-mortem hanging as cause of his death,” said a source in Prayagraj police.
Interestingly, police claimed to have recovered a suicide note — purportedly written by Tiwari — from the spot, which also allegedly blamed 11 people — including his in-laws — of harassment and claimed his two brothers-in-law had visited the place Friday night.
However, members of Tiwari’s family have claimed that the deceased could barely write and would usually take help from his children for maintaining business records and for even operating his phone.
A statement from the Prayagraj police said that field and forensic units collected evidence and a two-page suicide note from the spot, which is being examined. A chapad knife or a butcher’s knife has also been recovered from a field opposite the house, police claimed.
Prayagraj Superintendent of Police, Dinesh Kumar Singh, told ThePrint that in the “suicide note” the deceased, Tiwari, had levelled allegations of harassment against eleven persons including his in-laws and people close to them.
Police sources confirmed the names mentioned in the note to be those of Jaiprakash alias Pintu, Jaiprakash’s wife Manju, Ramprakash alias Chandrashekhar, Ramprakash’s wife Jyoti, Sunil, Ashu, Manoj alias Manager, Santosh, Awadh Kishore, Shivam and Namonayaran.
“It has been mentioned that he was being harassed by his in-laws and the others due to the property dispute,” added the sources.
A statement issued by Prayagraj police late Saturday informed that based “on the complaint of the deceased’s elder brother Munna Tiwari, an FIR has been lodged against four persons under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention),” and four persons — Pintu, Chandrashekhar, Manoj and Ashu, mentioned in the alleged suicide note — have been detained and were being questioned.
Meanwhile, the five deaths have fanned a political war of words, with Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in UP for drowning in crime.
In a press statement Saturday evening, the SP targeted the government for incidents of crime reported in the state in the past month.
“Criminals shot jeweler dead in Firozabad and fled with bag full of jewellery. Child killed in Sant Kabir Nagar after abduction. Jewellery trader shot at in Pratapgarh’s Narayanpur too. Dastardly murder of five people in Prayagraj’s Nawabganj. State-backed goons attack Atul Gupta in Banda and kill him. BJP leader’s video viral of beating youth in Shahjahanpur. Traders life is under threat in the state. Six traders have been looted over the past 15 days,” claimed party spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury, adding that a representative unit of the SP will visit Khagalpur to meet the families of Tiwari and his wife.
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Allegations and counter-allegations
The wiping out of the five-member Tiwari family has turned into a family feud, with some members of both Tiwari and Priti’s family alleging foul play by the latter’s brothers.
According to certain members of the family, the Tiwaris had been residents of Kaushambi for 15 years — staying with Priti’s widowed mother to take care of her. Tiwari and his wife are also said to have helped raise Priti’s younger brothers, Pintu and Chandrashekhar.
“Since Rahul had been staying in Kaushambi, he had constructed a house there for about 24 lakhs. On 6 July, my brothers along, with their relatives had barged into the house and tried to burn the house, threatening to kill the family. They are behind this. They came here and carried out the killings,” Priti’s sister, Jyoti, told ThePrint.
Sangeeta Tiwari, Rahul’s sister-in-law alleged that they had gathered in Kaushambi for a wedding on 8-9 July last year, when Rahul and his family were attacked and locked inside the house by the two.
“In July last year (a few days after being forced out of his house), when Rahul went to the house, to see his buffaloes he was not allowed to. When he still entered the house, he was beaten and locked inside,” alleged Neetu Tiwari, Rahul’s elder sister.
She added: “When my brother informed me, I went to the spot with the local chowki in-charge and saved him somehow or he would have been killed.”
Insisting that she did not believe that her brother could have died of suicide, Neetu claimed, “He has never even slapped the children. How can he kill them?”
While she alleged that many things “were being planted” at the scene to mislead investigations, Rahul’s cousin, Gyanendra Tiwari, told ThePrint, that the deceased had never been interested in studies and could barely write. “This (suicide note) is all cooked up,” he alleged.
Their version of the events leading to the death of the five is, however, in stark contrast to allegations reportedly made against Tiwari by his mother-in-law, Parvati Devi. According to her, Rahul and Priti had a court marriage about 16 years back, while he was working as a contractual employee in Allahabad University. She added that when his contract expired, he came to Kaushambi and started living with his in-laws.
Devi has further alleged that Tiwari tried to get her to transfer 16 biswas of the family land to his own name and also took a loan against that property. She added that the deceased further took illegal possession of their house and property, leading to a dispute with her two sons and that he was finally thrown out of the house with the help of police in November 2021.
‘Differences with wife can’t be ruled out’
Police officers ThePrint spoke to also said that Tiwari was possibly upset due to the loss of the house and the couple could have had differences over the same.
“Some differences with the wife cannot be ruled out,” circle officer I Ajit Kumar told ThePrint.
Neighbours admitted that the loss of the house bothered the deceased.
Sandeep Kumar, another tenant in the same building where Tiwari resided with his family, told ThePrint that the deceased would often talk about his house.
“Itna bada ghar chala gya tha to thodi dikkat to rehti thi…he used to say that ghar chala gya mera (He had lost his big house which so he used to be upset). Around 5 pm Friday, he gave me his bike to visit a wedding in Prayagraj. He would earn well from the animal trade,” he added.
Asked if there were any differences between Tiwari and his wife, Kumar said some differences couldn’t be ruled out and that the deceased would talk about the injustice meted out to him.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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