Chandigarh, Aug. 25 :
Chandigarh, Aug. 25:
The statement of Sonia, the married daughter of murdered former Haryana Independent legislator Relu Ram Punia, that she killed her parents and six other family members on Thursday night, has left many questions unanswered.
The mutilated bodies were discovered by villagers early on Friday at Punia's farmhouse near the Litani bypass in Hisar.
Police said Sonia mixed opium in the dinner served to the family, which was celebrating her sister Priyanka's birthday, before clubbing them to death. 'I killed everyone because I was not being given the proper share in the family's property,' Sonia, who was found unconscious at the murder site, told investigators today. 'I have suffered a lot and hope no one gets the kind of parents I had.'
According to sources, property owned by Punia runs into crores of rupees. He was also running a profitable business in furnace-oil.
Sonia claimed she wrote a suicide note after killing her family members before swallowing poison. The note was recovered by the police late last night from the farmhouse. Yesterday, preliminary investigations had revealed the hand of an 'insider' in the massacre.
Sonia claimed that she single-handedly killed Punia, his wife Krishna, son Sunil, daughter-in-law Shakuntala, another daughter, Priyanka, and three grandchildren - Lokesh, Shiwani and Preeti. Lokesh, who was four years old, was the youngest victim.
Investigations have revealed that Punia's servant Rohtash - who had entered the residential area of the farmhouse on Friday morning to inform the family
that Lokesh's schoolbus was waiting for a long time - was the first to stumble upon the bodies.
Police said Rohtash found Sonia lying unconscious and immediately sensed something
was wrong. He then entered an adjoining room to find the blood-splattered bodies.
His cry for help brought in the villagers who had, by this time, found it 'strange' that Punia had not reached the spot where they used to gather every morning.
The district police are exploring all angles to the killings. 'One person couldn't have planned the murders. There seems to be a bigger conspiracy behind the act,' a senior district official said.
A police officer said it was strange no one cried for help when Sonia was bludgeoning her kin to death. 'Sonia says she tied her mother Krishna's hands to a bed' but no one raised an alarm
while she was doing so, the officer said.
'Was Krishna alive when other members of the family
were being clubbed to death? Did
anyone resist the attack by iron rods? There can be more people
involved in the killings,' he
added.
Punia had shot into prominence in 1996 when he defeated the current Indian National Lok Dal MP, Surendra Singh Barwala.