Thane family's massacre: Police still looking for motive

Thane (Maharashtra), Feb 29: A day after the macabre massacre of 14 members of his own family by an income tax consultant who later hanged himself, police are still looking for the motive behind the crime, a top official said on Monday.

Joint Police Commissioner Ashutosh Dumbare said investigations from all angles were underway.

Even the suspected property dispute angle has not yet emerged in the probe yet. The police are waiting to record the statement of the sole survivor, Sabia Shoaib Bharmal, 21, the official said.

Sabia was attacked along with other family members with a long knife by her elder brother Hasnain Anwar Warekar, 32, the income tax consultant.

"We have seized his mobile phones and a laptop. We are ascertaining with whom he was in contact and for what purposes," Dumbare told the media on Monday evening.

Dumbare denied there were any indications that the deeply religious Hasnain could have been influenced by some extremist ideology or was radicalised.

Wielding a large knife, usually used for sacrificing goats during Bakr-i Eid, Hasnain butchered 14 members of his family around 3 a.m. on Sunday. Those slaughtered included his aged parents, his wife and two minor daughters, three sisters and six nieces and nephews.

He alleged spiked their food and sedated them before slitting their throats.

Bharmal, who was not sedated like her other family members, is said to have fended off the attack by her brother and locked herself in one of the bedrooms from where she screamed for help.

Local youths of Kasarvadavli area who heard her screams informed police and later managed to break open a grilled window to rescue Bharmal and rushed her to a private Titan Hospital nearby.

Police have sent food and blood samples collected from the house for forensic tests and preserved the viscera of the victims to help unravel the plan and motive behind the gruesome killings.

IANS