Navy Nagar deaths: Wife warned father husband would kill family, Mumbai police say

The wife of an Indian Navy sailor had warned her father that she feared her husband would kill her and their children, days before the family of four was found dead at their official residence in Navy Nagar, according to the Cuffe Parade police.

The 30-year-old sailor, his wife, and their two children—aged three years and two months—were found dead on Sunday in what investigators suspect to be a case of murder-suicide.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone I) Manish Kalwaniya, the woman had reached out to her family with concerns about her husband's mental state. The woman called her father a week ago and told him that she was afraid her husband, who was suffering from depression for several months, would kill them. Her father travelled to Mumbai to take them away, but the sailor argued with him and refused to allow his wife and children to leave.

Police said the couple hailed from Rajasthan and had been married for nearly four years. The couple had frequent arguments, and their families were not on speaking terms because the woman came from a poor family. Barring the sailor’s mother, no one from either family had visited Mumbai to see the couple's two-month-old daughter.

Investigators noted that the sailor had been undergoing treatment for depression for several months and frequently spoke about death, which raised his wife's suspicions.

Police suspect the sailor first killed his wife and two children before taking his own life in an adjacent room a day later. Before his death, he allegedly cleaned the room where his family lay, erased all data from his mobile phone, and barricaded the door of the adjacent room with a bed to prevent entry.

Officers suspect the victims may have been poisoned through food or injections, as foam was found oozing from their mouths. Because initial post-mortem reports were inconclusive regarding the exact cause of death, investigators are awaiting forensic laboratory analysis of the viscera.

Samples of food and water collected from the residence have also been sent to the forensic science laboratory in Kalina to determine whether the family was poisoned through contaminated meals.