NEW DELHI: A 52-year-old RAW official is suspected to have brutally killed his wife, son and daughter before committing suicide by hanging in their Sadiq Nagar flat in south Delhi. The bodies were discovered on Saturday evening. The police ruled out entry of any outsider though the motive of the official, Ananya Chakraborty , is yet to be established.

Chakraborty was posted as a field officer in the cabinet secretariat and was working in one of the classified branches, a source in the intelligence establishment said.

He was found hanging in the drawing room while his wife, Jayashree (42), and daughter Disha (13) were found with multiple head injuries and slit throats in one of the bedrooms. Ananya’s son, Arnab (17), was found with head injuries in another bedroom. The police have seized a hammer and a coconut chopper soaked in blood from the house.

Since both doors that give access to the flat were locked from inside, the police believe Chakraborty killed his wife and children before hanging himself. However, since they have not recovered any note and there are no eyewitnesses or survivors either, the man’s motive remains unknown. The state of the bodies and the coagulated blood at the spot indicate that the incident took place between midnight and dawn.

Marital discord is one of the factors the police are investigating. Some neighbors said they had heard the couple fighting. The families of both Chakraborty and his wife are being questioned, police said. “We have registered a case of murder and have got the scene of crime examined by forensic experts. More details will emerge once the postmortem is conducted,” said DCP south B S Jaiswal.

Ananya lived with his family in Flat No. 47 of the Type IV government quarters in the area. His wife was a school teacher in a prominent public school and the children studied in Central School. He was in Delhi for over five years and was due for promotion and foreign posting, the source in the intelligence wing said.

Ananya had gone to office on Friday and then had dinner at the house of a relative who lived nearby. The family was last seen around 10.30pm, a neighbour told police. This morning, the maid, the garbage collector and another visitor failed to get any response when they knocked on the doors or made calls. Jayshree’s cousin rushed to the house around noon to check of everything was alright.

The colony guard, Mangal, climbed the third floor house, using the grills, and broke the glass to open the balcony door but found it locked from inside.

Finally, a PCR call was made at 3.57pm by the relative. When the police broke open the door, they found the bodies. Crime and forensic experts were called. The bodies were sent to AIIMS for postmortem late in the evening. A special team, led by additional DCP P S Kushwah and inspector Kuldeep Singh has been formed to investigate the case.