Overview

• On August 5 in Mangalapuram near Rasipuram, 36-year-old P. Govindaraj locked his wife and infant son in a bedroom and used a sickle to kill his three daughters, aged five to eight, before ingesting poison.
• Authorities registered a case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and have completed post-mortem examinations at Namakkal Government Hospital.
• Investigators are scrutinizing the couple’s combined loans of ₹16 lakh—₹13.5 lakh from a private finance company and ₹2.5 lakh through women’s self-help groups—to determine how the funds were used and repaid.
• Officials believe the family’s inability to meet monthly installments of ₹27,000 intensified Govindaraj’s financial and psychological distress.
• The tragedy has prompted calls from activists and mental-health experts to strengthen rural suicide-prevention services and debt-relief measures in Tamil Nadu.