Odisha: Police recover five bodies including 4 women near railway tracks in Sambalpur, mass suicide suspected

Bodies of five persons of a family including three minor girls were found on railway track near Sarala Junction in Odisha’s Sambalpur district. State police officials believe the family committed suicide due to poverty.

“We recovered five dead bodies including four female and one male. It seems to be a case of mass suicide but we are investigating the case in all possible angles,” said IIC, GRP, G Dungdung.

The officer added that the mutilated bodies were first sighted by a driver of train on Tuesday late night. He informed the Government Railway Police (GRP) about the dead bodies. Security forces later in the night recovered the bodies and sent them for postmortem to ascertain the death cause.

Odisha Police have identified the deceased as Dharanidhar Panda, a music teacher, his wife Sangita Panda and his three daughters. “Dharanidhar was working as a music teacher in a private school in Sambalpur.”