INDIAN community leaders are struggling to comprehend why nine migrants have died in three separate murder-suicides in less than six weeks.

In the latest tragedy, revealed by police yesterday, a young husband and wife who had recently arrived in Melbourne were found dead in their home. News of the grim discovery prompted Melbourne India consul-general S. K. Behera to say he could not explain the reason.

Dr Behera said the distraught parents of Asim and Nidhi Sharma, who were found dead in Blackburn North on Monday, would fly to Australia to collect their bodies.

The Sharmas' deaths come less than two weeks after Anita George and her sons Mathew, 5, and Philip, 9, died in a Clayton South house fire.