As soon as we got there,
they all started screaming and shouting with joy.
Priyanka asked if I had brought the special Punjabi shoes for her.
I said, "Yes!" I had bought them especially for her.
I bought dresses for Pratibha and dry fruits for the family.
Everyone was in a festive mood.
We celebrated and danced all night.
We didn't even realize how time passed.
All the musical arrangements were made by Lalit.
He had set up the playlist on his phone and when our turn came to perform,
the right song would play from his phone.
I started the dance and one by one they all joined me.
After all, we were celebrating Priyanka's engagement.
We were dancing in exactly the same place where they were found hanging.
Who knew that in just ten days this would happen?
It was beyond anyone's imagination.
"Autopsy" as such means to see for yourself.
That is the examination of the bodies.
When I heard the news first, that 11 deaths had happened,
I knew that it's going to be a long day.
The dead can't speak for themselves.
So we become like their spokespersons.
That we have to find out their truth and bring it out in the open.
I think what we saw in this family was an extreme version
of what we see in families all over the world.
The family presents itself very often,
as this beautiful, harmonious, intact "Indian family."
Families have secrets
and they can be preserved at all sorts of costs.
The post-mortem started around 3:30 p.m.
11 bodies will take time.
Alongside, the media was snooping around, hoping to get a lead.
Hoping to get a scoop from the mortuary.
Whatever is there, we are doing it. Let the results come.
Were they sedated?
Was their food poisoned? All these possibilities are there.
Why was the door left open? Ten bodies were found hanging.
But the body of the matriarch was found head down, on the floor.
…and she was allegedly strangulated.
Would you kill your mother?
Why would my family kill my mother? Stop making false accusations!
How could a family go from throwing a big bash for their daughter
to mass suicide in 14 days?
I was here with the family for five days.
I left on the 20th.
If they had to commit suicide
why would they spend about Rs. 400,000 on the engagement?
Now, the actual cause of death
can only be verified by the post-mortem reports.
The police has transferred the case to the Crime Branch.
The biggest clue we found was the CCTV footage.
The CCTV did not show any outsider's entry in the house.
The footage from that night showed movement of only the family members.
11 members of a family died here on Sunday.
But it now appears, on the basis of new CCTV footage,
that this had methodically been planned.
The house had four rooms. We minutely checked every corner.
We didn't want to miss any detail.
We wanted to collect every piece of evidence.
From just looking at the crime scene, I knew something was up.
We found the remains of a ritual pyre.
The ash was very telling.
It suggested that they did some ritual the night before.
Generally, in cases of suicide,
we search near the temple area where people place suicide notes.
We did a thorough search and we found a diary near the shrine.
We saw the diary and we read its contents.
Everything became clear to us.
We found another one in another room,
and then I made my team comb the entire place.
Every room was checked at least ten times.
Ten times.
In total, we found 11 diaries.
The earliest was dated 2007.
And the last was just before the incident.
11 years.
The biggest problem was that there was no witness,
no known offender, and no survivor.
In this situation, the diaries proved to be
the most crucial evidence in this case.
You can see the Crime Branch officials exiting the house.
They have found some documents and diaries
that they have discovered from the scene of the crime.
The contents of these diaries are being taken for verification.
Standing on a terrace, we could see the police
were carrying away some notes and diaries. We watched this.
What do the diaries say? What are the handwritten notes?
Any idea what is written in those handwritten documents?
I have some idea, but at this point it will not be desirable to say anything.
How do we explain something like this to our readers?
Because we were clueless about what's written in those notes.
Are those notes related to this incident?
Are those notes responsible for the 11 deaths?
There was a lot of pressure to be the first one to break the news.
And some reporters were being pulled up to find answers as soon as possible.
I was standing outside that house and looking at it.
Suddenly, my eyes fell on the bare wall.
On that there were objects that looked like dots.
I was at a distance, so I took my phone out and zoomed in.
I was talking to my colleague about the strange pipes on the wall,
wondering who would place pipes like this in their house?
Just then a channel was reporting live. They heard us.
Surprisingly, seven pipes were facing downwards.
Four of them were straight.
Among the dead were seven females
and four males.
And the pattern of the pipes
was exactly the same as the hanging bodies.
While we were still discussing this,
the other reporter spoke about it on his live report.
Pipes, planning, and pattern.
The pipes and the pattern of the hanging bodies.
11 pipes were seen protruding…
Were these pipes installed to help the 11 souls escape?
Soon, the number 11 became a recurring theme in this case.
As you can see, there are 11 bars on the grill.
And now we have found 11 windows and 11 vents.
This was my idea that the number 11 has some deep relevance in this case.
The pipes had no other meaning.
They were installed for light and ventilation.
They asked me to put pipes
because they didn't want to put windows facing another plot.
They shall be closed when the neighbours construct their wall.
It didn't seem logical to us.
It didn't feel like it was for ventilation.
Why would someone put pipes for ventilation?
And how can bent pipes be used for ventilation?
We put the pipes randomly.
I got hold of some old pipes, some bent and some straight.
My workers were lazy. They didn't bother to cut the bent pipes.
There is nothing more to it.
The question remains, why is everything in that house
numbered at 11?
In my opinion, this whole "11" thing is just a coincidence.
There is absolutely no connection
between the pipes, the numbers, and 11 people dying.
But again, because the story was so intriguing,
that it was tough to understand.
Who were these people?
How could somebody as old as 14 agree to do something like this?
How could an educated girl pursuing Master's in Commerce,
who's working with an MNC,
how could they agree into doing something like this?
They were doing what the diaries said. This much I believe.
That they were absolutely abiding by whatever was written
inside those diaries.
Once we found the diaries, we started reading them.
And then, it took us a lot of time.
I read each and every word myself.
I just locked myself in the office and I read it, at one go.
The language was instructional.
At times, scolding.
It was conversational.
And immediately we went to the last page.
And there it was.
Everything we found at the crime scene was exactly as was written in the diaries.
They had documented the whole procedure.
They had written it about a week ago.
And they are talking about a ritual which will run for the next seven days.
Which they called the "Badh Pooja."
Badh is a tree which has roots hanging from the branches.
So the language suggests that they have to behave
like the roots hanging from branches.
They even wrote the time.
It's supposed to happen at about 1:00 in the morning.
"Perform the Badh ritual for seven consecutive days."
"If somebody visits the home, it has to be performed the next day."
"Nothing should be visible."
"Dim light should be used. The eyes should be completely shut."
"The blindfold should be properly tied on the eyes."
"The mouth should be gagged by the handkerchief."
"The state of mind has to be zero."
"Nothing but infinity."
"While you are standing at attention,
imagine the branches of the tree are wrapping themselves around you."
"Perform the Banyan tree ritual with unity and determination."
"This will help repent for your mistakes."
I went to great lengths to get my hands on some pages of the diaries.
I tried calling a few people, but no one had any leads.
I was trying every angle when I got a call from my source.
Those notes were terrifying.
I was going through each and every line written in those notes.
Trying to understand the intention and meaning behind them.
Since I had access to those notes,
I wanted to publish them the very next day.
It was an exclusive.
It seemed like these notes were written on a daily basis.
Every morning, each family member used to check the diary
for their routine for that day.
What each of them is supposed to do, who has defaulted.
"You all have to perform a prayer tonight."
"Attend to Mother's needs in the morning."
There is a diary entry, December 24, 2017,
wherein, it's written,
"Dhruv is spending too much time on the mobile phone."
"This must be corrected."
So even these kinds of little things they have mentioned in those diaries.
The diaries actually tell them how to conduct their life.
It was also filled with weird and eerie details,
which hinted at witchcraft and occult practices
and that this was responsible for their deaths.
It seemed like there was some other mystical energy,
that there was another presence apart from these 11 people,
that was giving them directions,
"Do this. Do that."
The family was drowned in superstitious beliefs.
This made us believe that
maybe they were advised by a tantrik to perform such a ritual.
Sir, any involvement of a tantrik?
A guru of any sort?
Any seer involved?
The media was putting pressure on the investigation.
The papers reported about a tantrik's involvement.
Our seniors asked us to look for a tantrik.
That's when the plumber's daughter got dragged into it.
They interviewed her and declared her the tantrik,
just because she dresses in red clothes.
Geeta Mata was the daughter of the contractor
who was renovating Lalit's house.
The media hyped her as the family's spiritual guru.
Delhi Police Crime Branch is questioning tantrik Geeta Mata
in the Burari death case.
Geeta has been arrested from her house in Burari.
I have nothing to do with this case.
That's all I have to say. And I don't know anything else.
My father has five contracts at any time
and I don't meet everyone that he works for.
The media is capable of making a mountain out of a molehill.
They'll do anything to create sensational news.
I was harassed for no reason.
The news showed my face
and spoke all sorts of rubbish about me.
I told the people from media this as well.
That I had no role in it at all.
My children starved for three days.
I was unable to cook food for them. We were so tense.
And I was called for questioning multiple times all over the city.
It is not a good thing to trouble a decent person.
We looked for some person with a religious, spiritual background
who might have been in contact with the family.
Late night calls, daily messages, something like that.
We did not find a single person of that sort.
Not even one.
So then the second question was who wrote the diaries?
In India, a typical joint family
is several generations living under one roof
and there being a head of household, a patriarch.
And all authority is derived from him.
But once the father dies there's a vacuum in the family.
The family was heavily influenced by Bhopal Singh.
He was an authoritative figure.
Bhopal Singh wasn't financially well-off.
Bhopal Singh came to Narayani Devi's father,
asking for work.
Her father took a liking to Bhopal Singh and found him to be honest and reliable.
So, he offered his daughter's hand in marriage
and took Bhopal Singh into the family and his home.
That's when Bhopal Singh took on the surname "Bhatia."
He dropped his earlier surname "Chundawat."
After his death, things started changing.
When he was alive, he was the head of the family.
He used to guide the whole family down to planning the children's education.
How to manage the savings and expand the business. He made all decisions.
When the father passed away,
the family wondered who will take over as the head of family?
From 1988 to 2018, 30 years of friendship.
They moved to Delhi in the '90s. Before that they lived in Tohana.
In Delhi they started from scratch.
From that time to today, we would go to Delhi only because of them.
The eldest brother lived away from the family, in Kota.
Dinesh, that's his name.
The middle one, Bhuvnesh, was very reserved.
He'd leave for work in the morning, come back at night.
Although he was the youngest, everyone would listen to Lalit.
It was because he was mature beyond his years.
So everyone looked up to him.
I was confused about why he was so mature despite being so young.
He took care of everyone.
From his mother down to the children.
He successfully filled the void that his father's death left behind.
The family considered his word as final.
Lalit was Chander's friend even before our marriage.
I really liked him. He was like an elder brother to me.
I would look up to him for guidance on everything.
He would say, "Don't mind Chander's anger."
"He's been like this since the beginning."
When they would sit with each other,
they would crack up with jokes all of the time.
They were just like us, the average middle-class family.
She isn't permitted to go out without my father's consent.
She needs his consent.
Even though we know he will never say no.
But the veto power is with my father.
That's why it's been 25 years, no fights between us.
So far, no fights.
All of them listened to Lalit.
Whatever he said was obeyed by all.
Even during festivals we used to see
Lalit was leading the festivities.
None of the kids would even light up a fire cracker in Lalit's absence.
We moved here around '97-'98.
In the beginning years, we didn't observe this kind of behaviour.
I wonder why everything changed only after his father's death.
We don't know about their relationship when Bhopal Singh was alive.
But after his death, Lalit's attachment to his father
became stronger.
First entry according to my notes is September 2007.
Right after Bhopal Singh's death.
Most of the things mentioned in the diary were related to Lalit.
"You all are making Lalit very anxious."
"Follow Lalit's instructions or else the outcome will be disastrous."
"If you want solutions to your problems
then you must follow Lalit's instructions."
As the police found more diaries, more details came to the front.
That's when we discovered that since 2007,
Lalit was being visited by his dead father in his dreams.
He was having conversations with his dead father,
following everything his father told him.
And slowly, he started sharing these instructions with the family.
Neetu had told her neighbours
that her uncle was possessed by their grandfather's spirit.
The spirit guides the family.
Whenever Lalit was possessed, his voice would change.
The voice that he spoke in was the father's voice.
That must have been a moment, which I think did something to everyone.
He became a medium for the spirit of his father
and he would speak and behave like his father.
Even though Narayani Devi was Lalit's mother,
he addressed her as "Narayani."
Just the way Uncle Bhopal used to address her.
Lalit was being possessed by his father's spirit.
And whatever Lalit wrote
was assumed to be instructions for the family from the dead father.
After I leave, all of you must go to sleep.
No need for discussions.
My visitations are not an ordinary occurrence.
You must not take God's will lightly.
Don't worry about Lalit's health.
My visits affect him physically.
Sleep will heal him.
Pay attention to this line from the diary,
"Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, I will be back."
Instead of your own will, follow the will of the diaries.
Don't think, "What is the use?"
When it actually happens your eyes will open.
My next visit will be on Thursday or Saturday.
Be fully ready.
The language that Lalit was using,
he wasn't saying that, "I'm saying you should do this."
It's like, the father has said that Lalit should do this.
Now the father is dead.
So in some ways a dead person…
You know it's kind of ironical, that somehow a dead person
demands more authority and commands more respect from the family.
So here is nine, ten people in the family
ready to listen to Lalit, which are the instructions of the father.
I never felt like Savita had any interests of her own.
All she ever did was to manage the kitchen morning to night.
We wondered why the poor woman was always in the kitchen.
I think the diaries dictated this role to her.
Savita has not been able to come to terms with her role in the kitchen.
She must put an end to her temper tantrums.
Be mindful of your mother's age and needs.
If you are able to keep your parents happy,
you are serving God's wishes.
Savita and Tina must improve their relationship with Pratibha.
Make her feel loved.
Bhuvnesh, be careful!
Doom will enter the house in the guise of alcohol.
The lack of harmony between Priyanka and Neetu
creates obstructions at various levels.
You all must emulate Lalit and Tina's values and behaviour.
Lalit's wife, Tina, was very good-natured.
But since Lalit had taken over as head of the family,
Tina stood to benefit from that.
Life can be difficult for a daughter-in-law.
Whatever Lalit said, Tina would second that.
They were two bodies but one soul.
So she must have encouraged him,
since it was beneficial to her.
It's most shocking to know about Tina. She held a master's degree in Sociology.
Yet, she supported him?
All your present gains are thanks to Lalit and Tina's efforts.
Every small mistake you make
has an effect on Lalit and Tina's well-being.
To protect Lalit and Tina, you all will be put through a test till Diwali.
11 years is a long time.
Did he get any opposition from his family members?
Was he challenged by anybody? Did anybody make an effort to get away?
Clearly not.
It takes two to play a game.
You have to have people who will say,
"Okay, I am willing to be controlled."
The day this case was registered,
the police submitted eight to ten diaries in question
along with personal diaries of family members.
Our job was to find if the handwriting matched
the writing in the personal diaries.
We felt that it must be Lalit who was writing those notes.
But the forensic report prepared by the handwriting expert
revealed that Pratibha's daughter, Priyanka,
and Bhuvnesh's daughter, Neetu, used to write these notes.
This came as quite a shock, that on Lalit's instructions,
these new age girls were taking notes. They were so influenced by him.
Not a single member of the family spoke about this to anyone outside.
This was the amount of control.
You can call it faith or belief. Or even fear.
But this is how it was.
Earlier, they were just managing to survive financially
but after Daddy's death, when they started these rituals,
life started looking up for them.
They thought they were prospering. They opened a new shop.
Priyanka got a job.
They all began to do well and settle down.
They believed that all this prosperity was coming to them
because they were following Daddy's instructions.
Whatever he said bore good results. They began making profits.
Then, their financial position also became better.
He even took credit for the girl's marriage that was arranged.
"All these good things are happening because you're following the diaries."
We all attended Priyanka's engagement.
Our whole family went.
The family made elaborate arrangements as you can see in the video.
The children prepared for days.
They rehearsed the dance with a professional choreographer.
Based on Priyanka's Facebook profile and police investigation,
we have come to know that
she was working as a senior executive in a multi-national company.
She had graduated from University of Delhi.
When I had spoken to an official in her office,
he said that she used to maintain her distance.
In fact, from what I was told,
she had not told about her engagement in office at all.
The girls were like goddesses, so pure and good-hearted.
What was their fault?
My heart pains every time I think about those kids.
This was their time to enjoy life.
Do not disobey my instructions in the diaries.
Despite making mistakes, you come here in the evening
and claim to have made no mistakes.
Do not forget that the vibrations of your old mistakes never end.
They follow you.
If you continue to disregard God's warnings,
God might summon you in person.
These are very educated children.
They are young.
They are at an age group when they should be asking questions.
Especially the younger generation. They are, at the face of it, "modern."
I don't feel I know
how the multiplicity of voices which is usually there in human beings,
how it could have been so completely silenced?
Let's in fact begin with some breaking news.
The post-mortem report has now confirmed
that the ten deaths of the family members were due to hanging.
The post-mortem report of the oldest family member,
the grandmother, however, is yet to be released.
Emotions actually take a back seat whenever we are dealing with dead bodies.
Because we have to look at it very technically.
The grandmother, the eldest member,
hers was a case of "partial hanging."
She was found lying by the side of her bed.
There was a wardrobe next to her. The scarf was tied to its handle.
When we read the diaries, this was all explained.
Since mother is old and overweight,
she will not be able to perform the ritual standing on a stool like others.
She will do the ritual lying down.
I don't know if Narayani Devi was forced or if she was easily convinced?
The grandmother did have some injury marks.
That could happen if she had been gripped very tightly by someone.
It was very difficult for us to understand because it was really unusual, this case.
They all had masking, padding, blindfolding.
That was common. Ear plugs.
There was gagging with a handkerchief.
One of the children, the boys.
The youngest boy.
The diaries' entry notes,
that gave us a lot of clue about this,
which actually corroborated with the post-mortem findings also.
Make sure you are bound tightly.
God should be impressed with your dedication.
Use moist cloths to gag your mouths.
If not, use doctor tape over your mouth.
You cannot, I don't think
anyone in the world can convince kids to commit suicide.
That's why they were tied so tight, so that the ritual happens at any cost.
What they did to the children is unforgivable.
Did he make them swallow it, or did he force it down their throats?
If he was alive, I don't know what I would have done to him.
I feel so much anger.
So many questions that this case raised about my own beliefs, and society.
There is such a thin line between faith and delusion.
Where does faith end and where does delusion start, you know?
Where do you draw the line?
I went up the steps and saw everybody standing in a circle.
I stood there for two minutes
wondering whether it's real.
The last one to, what I feel, the last one to commit suicide was Lalit.
That's what I think.
Because the ties on his hands were of some kind of wire.
His binds were different from everyone else's.
Lalit and Tina,
neither of them had their hands tied properly.
Their legs too were unbound.
It seems like they were the ones to help tie up the others.
It's not possible for anyone to tie themselves from behind.
Tina must be his partner in crime.
I know that he never hid anything from her.
I can't say if anybody else in the family knew what would happen.
These two definitely knew what they were doing.
That this would end badly for the family.
It's as if the maternal wish to protect the children
had been lost.
We often hear of women fighting to,
at least if nothing else, protect their children.
To me, what this raised was questions of power.
Did the women of the house,
and more women died at the end of it than men…
Did the women of the house have the right to not participate in that ritual?
And if they didn't, can it still be called suicide?
Or should it be called murder?
On the 30th of June, 2018,
the ritual had already begun eight days back
as was written in the notes.
There was a promise of the father arriving in the final act.
And that is why the entire family agreed to perform the ritual,
to further their betterment.
That it's only a matter of 10 to 15 minutes.
They were made to believe that Father will come and save them.
"No harm will come to you. This is for your own good."
My name is Jatin. I was Dhruv and Shivam's friend.
They were my neighbours. They lived next door.
I had met them that night too. I was taking some food stuff home.
They were standing at their shop.
They were laughing and joking among themselves.
They playfully hit me too.
I asked them if they wanted to play. They said, "Not today."
It was around 10:30.
The one sentence in this entire episode that will always always stay with me is,
"It's time for Daddy's visit."
It was a goose bumpish feeling.
And obviously, the magic of the moment was such
that they believed that, "We will not die."
"And we can trust so completely."
God is pleased with you.
Knowing that 11 of you are standing in one line, with one thought.
Do not panic while performing the Banyan Tree ritual.
The earth might shake or the skies might tremble.
Do not let this weaken your resolve.
Convince the children to keep chanting.
The chanting may last from five to 15 minutes.
Till the chanting lasts,
Lalit will protect all of you.
The responsibility of tying up everyone has been assigned to one of you.
When all the binds are secure,
then Lalit will give a signal with a stick.
Place a tumbler full of water nearby.
Just as the colour of the water changes,
I will come back.