Techie poisons wife, kids in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: A software professional reportedly killed his wife and two children by feeding them food, which was laced with poison and consumed it later at Hasthinapuram in L B Nagar. The police suspect the man might have taken the extreme measure over alleged losses he had suffered in a business venture.

Kotra Pradeep Kumar (36), a software professional working with an IT company at Raidurgam, lived along with his wife Swathi (28) and two children, Kalyan Krishna (6) and one-and-half-month old Jaya Krishana. The family resided at their house in Santoshi Matha colony, Hasthinapuram, L B Nagar police station area.

“Pradeep Kumar mixed some poisonous substance with food and offered it to his wife and children on Saturday itself. After this, Pradeep wrote a suicide note and consumed the poisonous food,” said LB Nagar Inspector, V Ashok Reddy.

As the family was not answering phone calls from friends and relatives on Saturday and Sunday, Satish Kumar, the elder brother of Swathi, who was out of town rushed to Hyderabad on Sunday night and went to LB Nagar police station and informed the cops about the matter.

A police patrol team immediately



reached the house and found the doors and windows latched from inside. “Our personnel broke the window pane and found Pradeep lying on the floor in the hall. With no response forthcoming, the police team broke the door and went inside to find the bodies of Swathi and two children in the bedroom,” said the SHO.

The police suspect Pradeep might have first offered the poison-laced food to his wife and children and later consumed it on Saturday. “We found some curry and a mix of ragi (finger millet) in the house and seized it,” said V Ashok Reddy.

The police recovered a suicide note from the house. In the note purportedly written by Pradeep and addressed to his father, the man stated; “I wanted to earn huge money and start a company and intended to clear loans. But I could not succeed and landed in debts. I had taken hasty decisions. I don’t want to burden you with responsibility of my family after my death. Please forgive me,” he wrote.

The bodies were later shifted to Osmania General Hospital mortuary where a post-mortem examination was conducted. The bodies were handed over to the family members.