Gurugram pharma honcho smashes daughter's head with hammer, kills wife, son before committing suicide

In a shocking case of murder-cum-suicide, former R&D head of Sun Pharmaceuticals committed suicide after brutally murdering his children and wife at their plush Gurugram home over the weekend. The incident came to light after the house help raised an alarm and the neighbours informed the police about the deaths. According to an initial probe, it appears that Prakash Singh, the 50-year-old pharma executive, first killed his daughter in her sleep and then murdered his wife and son before ending his life. Singh, who belonged to Varanasi, was a PhD degree holder from the BHU. He had just resigned from Sun Pharmaceuticals as R&D head and was set to join another company in Hyderabad.

A suicide note found from Singh’s pocket said that, “he was not able to handle his family". “I am completely failed taking my family along with me. I am completely responsible for this. No one else,” Singh reportedly wrote in the suicide note.

According to a Times of India report, the police has yet not been able to establish any clear motive of the gruesome crime. While depression is being seen as one of the reasons behind Singh’s action, the investigators are yet to find any proof to substantiate this theory. The TOI report said that Singh first attacked his daughter. He smashed his daughter’s head with a hammer. No struggle marks were found on his daughter’s body. Aditi Singh, 22, was a student at Jamia Millia Islamia. She used to run a small startup for home-made soaps.  

His wife Sonu ran her own school in Gurgaon, they said. All the family members, except Prakash, had multiple stab wounds. Their throats were also slit, police said.

"We are examining the note with the help of handwriting experts to ascertain whether the letter was written by the doctor or someone else," a police official said. The bodies have been sent for postmortem, he added.