Date:19/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/19/stories/2008091958650100.htm

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Share market loss: family ends life

Staff Reporter

— Photo: G. Krishnaswamy

Anxious faces: Neighbours peeping into the house of K.Upender in Hyderabad on Thursday.

HYDERABAD: The stock market crash forced a couple to take their lives along with their two-year-old son in a most gruesome way in Saidabad on Thursday.

The small time investor K. Upender (30) released cooking gas from the cylinder and lit a matchstick in his house at SBH Colony in Saidabad. His wife Swathi (25) and son Sai Akshij died of burns even before neighbours could make any attempt to save them. Forensic experts confirmed that the burns were due to LPG fire.

The house owner Jagannadham heard screams around 5.30 a.m. and rushed to Upender’s house on the ground floor.

“The doors were bolted from inside and I had to break them open,” he narrated to police. But by then, the three were burnt to death and the bodies were lying scattered in their bedroom. An LPG cylinder found in the room suggested that the couple released the gas before lighting a matchstick.

CLUES team scientists visited the scene later. There was no scope to save them, police said.

Though no suicide note was found, Swathi’s brother Santosh, in his complaint with the police, stated that his sister and brother-in-law died in a suicide pact having suffered losses in share market transactions.

Upender hailed from Laxminarasimhapuram of Bayyaram in Khammam district. He married Swathi of Warangal five years ago. He was working with Saket Consultants dealing with stock market transactions.

Runs own business

Recently, he ventured into the same business independently. He was operating from his house and selling and buying shares for other clients as well, Malakpet ACP Suhas Chaturvedi told reporters.

Police said inquiries revealed that Upender invested huge money in the market and reportedly incurred losses.

However, he didn’t disclose about business losses to any of his relatives. Some of his friends told police that they knew he was not doing well in the business but never thought that the losses were so acute that he would resort to the extreme step.