Under-trial commits suicide in Tihar

New Delhi, Feb 29: An under-trial accused of murdering his pregnant wife and three-year-old son, was found hanging in the high-security Tihar Prison complex today.

37-year-old Vikram Bhatia, an architect, allegedly committed suicide at the behavioural therapy ward of jail number 3, where he was kept for treatment of mental illness, at around 7 AM.

He went to an isolated part of the ward, made a rope with towel strips and hanged himself from a grill of the building, said a jail official, adding that he was rushed to Deen Dayal Updahyay (DDU) Hospital where doctors declared him dead.

Vikram, who was suffering from depression owing to his poor financial condition, had allegedly strangled to death his pregnant wife and son at north west Delhi's Keshavpuram area in October last year, police said.

He had also tried to commit suicide after killing his family but was saved and arrested by the police. He was lodged in Tihar in November, 2015. Jail officials said that

Vikram was undergoing treatment for his mental illness at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IBHAS).

PTI