I don't think we have ever met or will ever meet such an amazing family.
The love that they gave us was unparalleled.
She is my elder sister, Sunita Mehta is her name.
She is my sister-in-law.
My husband was friends with Lalit.
Slowly our family and their family became like an extended family.
Our kids also loved their kids. They were very attached to each other.
My son Karan and her son Vishwa…
These are the gifts that Monu (Menaka) gave to Karan.
Such was her love for my son.
How can someone love their brother so much?
Each of these gifts was created by her.
When you open them you realize how unique each one is.
"Happy Birthday Brother."
This is all Menaka's creativity.
Menaka was a very good girl,
very intelligent.
She wanted her life to be meaningful.
She had no clue that something like this would happen to her.
She did not send me the cards one by one,
but gave me this whole lot on my birthday.
She was so attached to me that she wanted to surprise me.
She actually made all these cards herself for my birthday.
Our bond was stronger than a brother-sister can ever have.
Sometimes it hits me
that she is no more.
But then, I have to accept it.
It felt like something had changed in my son.
I slept in his room for days.
I wouldn't leave him alone.
He would keep saying, "This cannot happen to Monu."
"Mamma, why did they do this? Why did Lalit Uncle make them do this?"
Only God has these answers.
What happened? Why did this happen? How did this happen?
It just doesn't make sense. Don't cry, Parveen. Please don't cry.
Our legacy is the beautiful memories that the family left us.
I'm actually surprised that more conversations have not happened
about what exactly happened in Burari.
Talking about this in thoughtful reflective fashion,
not shutting ourselves off,
can then help foster future conversations.
Obviously some things went, clearly, very, very wrong.
This was all a creation of Lalit's mind.
There was obviously something going on in his head for years,
and he was entangled in his own creation.
He was playing with their minds psychologically,
right from the beginning.
I think what happened to the whole family was very unfair.
Don't consider these evening prayers a joke.
And stay away from people that you have been forbidden to talk to.
Every time you default, Lalit, Tina and Shivam have to pay the price.
But you always forget that.
If anyone defaulted, or did not follow his instructions,
or did not follow the instructions in the diary, they were punished.
It's a blessing that God is making you aware of your mistakes.
For a whole year, starting December, you will be punished.
This year will be your last.
His situation was getting worse.
This shift tells me
that he felt in many ways so out of control,
that he couldn't carry it any further.
That he had come to the end of his tether, so to speak.
Lalit was instrumental in this.
He succeeded because
he successfully positioned himself as the patriarch.
So, everybody was bound to follow.
One person is responsible for all of them ending up like this.
Lalit.
Just because of you, everybody has lost their life.
As per the revelations from the police investigations,
the youngest son, Lalit, instigated the whole family to commit a mass suicide.
What is tragic is that it's only presented as the bizarre.
Because there are other things also going on in this incident,
but it's only presented as something sensational,
as something terribly voyeuristic.
That you can't stop watching because it's so bizarre.
Piercing through the deafening silence, we bring you this sensational scoop.
The truth uncovered from Burari's Death House!
The media has different approaches to cover these kinds of cases.
We have seen it in the past, and this will continue in the future.
But do you agree with the way cases like this are reported?
You will get me in trouble.
Okay.
Sensationalized reporting is something I do not agree with.
Some reporters had approached it that way in this case,
and hyped up their coverage.
Was this murder that the police aren't looking at?
What about a possible "Baba" being involved?
Were these pipes installed to help the 11 souls escape?
One of the things that clearly happened with this case
and which is why we know so little about it,
is that it was reported in this, sort of, crime drama way.
It was reported as a story of numerology,
of this, sort of, almost tantrik dimension to it.
And I think it was an early heralding
of the kind of rubbish
that broadcast journalism in the mainstream TV space
has descended to in India.
The media reported that screams were heard from the house
that people have seen ghosts.
People were vicariously enjoying the fake and hyped-up news.
The media was feeding that demand.
They added all the spices and lies to sell their news.
You, as a reporter, need to be objective, sensible about what you're reporting.
And in the Burari case, it was more important because,
you are dealing with this bizarre case that is not making sense
which has all these sorts of things that need to be dealt with sensitivity.
The collective salacious appetite for scandal
comes from the kind of "othering" of dysfunctionality.
It's much easier to pretend
that this happens to other people and it doesn't happen to you.
And here is this entire family that hangs itself,
or at least that's what we are told, and we know literally nothing about it?
No one actually ever told us why or how this happened.
And none of us went back to try and follow it up?
It just fell off the map.
Their father's name was Bhopal Singh.
He was a very simple man. He didn't smoke or have any vices.
We were the oldies. We'd sit and chat.
He often shared his memories of Tohana with me.
His days in farming, the prosperous milk business he had.
They had cows and buffaloes on their farm as well.
This eight acres of land around us,
it all belonged to Bhopal Singh.
He sold it to us in 1988-'89.
My name is Gurdayal Singh.
These two are my brothers.
My elder brother's name is Karam Singh.
My younger brother's name is Gurcharan Singh.
His nickname is Tari.
When he met my father, they had an instant connection.
They considered each other brothers. There was so much love between them.
He had made a dairy in his farm as well.
After that he worked hard as a labourer and brought up his children.
Then they purchased a tractor.
They started doing farming on the land.
But then he spent all his earnings on his children's marriages.
He told my father that they had run into major debts after the marriages.
At that point they sold their land to us.
After selling the land, he said, "I have no means left to survive now."
He said, "My children lived a prosperous life here,
but in this community, I can't afford a downfall in status."
So they decided that since relatives were in Delhi, they should also go there.
Bhopal Singh was a very nice man.
We used to address him as "uncle."
He always spoke to the point.
He wasn't narrow-minded, in fact, he was a very broadminded person.
He wasn't strict at all.
Back then, the family lived here very happily.
Lalit was a naive and mischievous boy.
He was very naughty.
The youngest child is always pampered.
Lalit, being the youngest, was everyone's favourite.
Lalit, Chander and I,
we were in 12th grade and we drank beer.
We didn't miss a chance to hang out and drink beer.
We would talk late into the night.
Lalit would drive the conversation always.
He used to go on and on about the past or the future.
He would keep talking and entertaining us.
We were not connected by blood. Our relationship was beyond that.
He was a true friend to me.
When I first met him, he had already met with an accident.
I don't remember exactly, but I think
Lalit's first accident was a bike accident.
He was hospitalized for quite a few days.
He was supposed to take his exams,
but he was in the hospital and could not take his exams.
I spoke to his parents and learned
that Lalit had suffered from serious head injuries at that time.
I remember that he used to fall asleep all the time.
Right in the middle of a conversation, he would go to sleep.
So that was his first accident,
during which, he was admitted for quite a few days.
After he moved to Delhi, he met with another accident.
Actually, I cannot call it an accident. It was an attack on his life.
The people who attacked him intended to kill him.
That's when he lost his voice.
Lalit worked in a plywood shop in the suburbs across the Yamuna river.
He had a dispute with his employer about his payment.
They had a fight about it.
We heard that Lalit was locked inside the store and it was set on fire.
Nobody knew what the attacker's intention was,
but they thrashed him badly and locked him in the plywood shop.
They burnt the boxes of plywood that were kept there.
When he gained consciousness,
he realized that plywood had fallen on him.
The wood got stuck on his shoulder.
He removed his phone from his pocket and called his brother.
"I have been attacked!"
"They have injured me and locked me in the shop."
"Come soon. They have set the shop on fire."
Someone actually planned that attack. They must have hated him.
It was considered to be an attempt to murder.
It was near fatal, it was assumed he was dead.
He had already suffered a head injury,
but after this second incident,
the smoke entered into his lungs.
Because of this, he lost his voice.
When I used to visit him during that time,
I saw an able, good-humoured man who was shut down.
He had to write his thoughts to communicate with us.
He quit his job.
His entire family was in despair,
as he was the sole earning member of the family.
Lalit's son was born when he couldn't speak,
and I used to think
that it must be so difficult for Lalit, that he can't call his son by name.
I believed that he had really lost his voice.
Never had reason to doubt it.
That's highly unlikely
unless the person has had a stroke or a bleed in the brain,
which has managed to affect the speech centre.
Or there is physical damage by trauma or disease
to the larynx, to the voice box.
I don't believe there is any evidence of either.
Had he really lost his voice? Or was he putting on an act?
I can't say for sure.
The family chose to bury that episode.
His mother also asked me not to discuss it with him.
"It's best we forget it and not mention it ever."
Gradually, we all made an effort to forget that episode.
To recover from that requires a fair amount of healing.
Physical healing. Emotional healing.
And especially since after the accident he didn't speak,
it seemed that he had lost his voice.
Did he really lose his voice? We don't know.
Or at a deep psychological level, the trauma was so great
that he just decided that he wasn't going to speak anymore.
Because it was just too painful.
And nobody treated his PTSD, which was after that fire.
Nobody treated it.
After the accident, the doctor had suggested that
Lalit should be taken to a psychiatrist.
The family told us also
that they were advised to take Lalit to a psychiatrist.
But people believe that only "mad" people go to a psychiatrist.
But he was mentally ill. They should have taken it seriously.
The psychological literature suggests
that when a person has been through a fair amount of trauma,
and if you're not treated from that trauma,
a certain level of psychosis sets in.
Psychosis is the inability of the mind
to deal in a rational way
with what's going on in your life.
And one of the direct results of psychosis is hearing voices.
Then there is the loss of his father.
After Daddy ji passed away,
one day, Lalit heard his father's voice telling him
to recite the Hanuman Chalisa every single day at 10:00 in the evening.
"Lalit will regain his voice."
They made this into a routine. They prayed at 7:00 in the morning,
12:00 noon, and then 10:00 in the night.
But Lalit didn't get his voice back immediately, it took one year.
They were reciting Hanuman Chalisa when Lalit suddenly started singing.
Hearing this, everyone else stopped singing,
and Lalit took the song to completion.
In a trance, Lalit did not realize that he was the only one left singing.
They called, excited, to inform us that Lalit got his voice back.
"Right in between our prayers. Daddy was right!"
Lalit had mentioned to me
that all this is happening because of the blessings of Daddy.
But he never mentioned about his father's spirit.
The fact that the spirit was speaking through him.
He used to share everything with me, but he never spoke about all this to me.
After the father left, no one was in a position of authority.
Their mother was bedridden,
and the elder brother did not take much initiative,
so Lalit had to somehow hold the family together.
Which he did remarkably well.
In the last 11 years, nobody has ever been hurt.
Except for this time.
As their financial condition improved, their belief system became concrete.
The result was that they developed a blind faith in Lalit.
From the time that his voice came back,
to the time, of whatever diaries we have some pages of,
he was slowly building up, "This is what our father is telling us."
"This is what we need to do."
Telling everybody to behave in a certain manner
and be restricted in that manner.
And everybody was believing him.
They started praying, and God started answering their prayers.
Whatever Lalit said or asked them to do,
was believed to be Daddy's wishes that had to be fulfilled.
This, in turn, empowered Lalit even more.
So there's an entire, sort of, formula
by which he becomes the idealized,
somewhat scary authority figure.
And, you know, everyone just does what he asks them to do.
And it was like a little cult inside of that family.
If you would go through the beginnings of any cult,
the so called leader of the cult,
needs to demonstrate by the performance of an extraordinary feat,
which is usually against the laws of nature,
that he is in possession of supernatural or superhuman capabilities.
The regaining of the voice
is the performance of that feat.
You can't execute anything in a cult unless there is complete submission.
This kind of social isolation was created that you're not supposed to have fun.
You're only supposed to enjoy, "in a manner" enjoy
the religious stuff that was happening in the house.
Whatever we found in the written material,
it's repeatedly mentioned that, "Nobody will disobey what's written here."
And it suited them in the past. The quality of their lives improved.
They expanded from one shop to two.
The notes directed them to invest money in certain places,
which was successful.
Arranging marriage for the daughter. That worked too.
When they followed the instructions, the family made significant growth.
That bolstered their belief in it so much that
whatever power is guiding them, they were compelled to follow it.
He was slowly creating some impact on everybody.
And everybody was believing him.
And they thought that was the best way of life.
He must've been telling them, "Our secrets must remain between us only."
We often raise our kids in the same way
when we tell them not to discuss domestic matters with the outside world.
"What will people say" is what matters to us.
So people believe it.
And lots of us who actually believe
that secrets of the house should remain secret.
There are always multiple life events,
but there is a trigger which finally gets them into psychosis.
Was he feeling that there's going to be
some problem happening with this engagement?
If this Priyanka goes away, will the world come to know
something else is happening in the family?
That means, "Maybe we're in danger."
And suddenly realizing that now she's going to go away
and the world is going to come to a halt.
If you call this a personal kingdom of Lalit,
and a very, very important part of that kingdom
was going to leave the family.
So, it was the forbidden kingdom for him.
And nobody was allowed to leave.
I had noticed that a few days prior to Priyanka's engagement,
Lalit's behaviour had changed quite a bit.
He was more reserved than usual.
Lalit would turn away from us to avoid conversation.
When the children were rehearsing a dance for Priyanka's engagement,
I asked Lalit how the rehearsal was coming along.
Lalit ignored me and then got up and left.
So his behaviour had changed drastically.
I had asked Priyanka on one of our walks
if Lalit was okay?
She hesitated and said yes.
I pointed out that he wasn't talking much.
She said Lalit had a throat problem.
I asked if he was taking medicines, and she said, yes, he was.
I found it very weird. I'd never seen him this dull, ever.
He was sleeping all night and then all day.
After the engagement, he slept for days on end.
I even asked Tina that, "What happened to Lalit? Why is he sleeping so much?"
She told me he's suffering from some nerve pain.
"He's had his medication and gone to sleep."
I didn't bother after that.
But I found it really weird that he was sleeping so much.
I even called Lalit after that.
Tina received the call, she told me that Lalit's still sleeping.
I told her that's exactly what I wanted to discuss with him.
Why is he sleeping so much?
Tina told me not to worry.
That was the last time we spoke.
This was my first experience with death.
For a week, I was so scared.
I wouldn't be in my room alone. I didn't want to be by myself.
In my dreams, I would see them. I still see them sometimes.
I saw them a few months ago.
It was night time.
In my dream, I found myself standing on the roof.
My sister and me. Jokingly we started calling out names.
And we saw Dhruv standing there like he used to when he was alive.
Just standing there. Normally.
"Dhruv! Dhruv!" We screamed a few times.
He shouted back, "Tell me, Jatin, what's up?"
Just then, I woke up scared.
I especially remember Dhruv and Shivam at night.
That's the time we used to play together.
How do I define this incident?
Okay.
It's not a crime.
They had no intentions to die,
so it cannot be called suicide.
Whatever they did, they did willingly. So it cannot be a murder.
What do we call it?
It's a damn good question, what do we call it?
Everything points at suicide.
But can we say for sure that it was suicide?
-Yes. -Or incidental death?
Accidental death, I mean. If you look at the page in the diary,
it said, "Everyone will help each other in untying."
But that never happened.
They were expecting to survive this ritual.
We believe it was accidental.
This is not a murder. This is not suicide.
-Accidental death. -This is accidental death.
When the ground investigation was complete,
then it was decided that we should go for something
which is called a psychological autopsy.
A group of scientists, including a psychologist,
they go into the psyche of the people who have died
to find out how it happened or why it happened.
All of this was examined in the psychological autopsy.
Basically, Lalit had the problem, psychosis.
And then Lalit transmitted it to the family,
making it a case of shared psychosis.
They believed everything Lalit would say.
So considering all of this,
the psychological autopsy
concluded that they were not planning to commit suicide.
This is not a suicide.
This is a ritual, which went bad, and they lost their lives.
It's very, very easy to just start giving snap explanations,
including things like, you know, collective psychosis, which I thought was…
Which is probably true, maybe. But it's sort of a catch-all phrase
which just says everything and doesn't say anything at the same time.
Uh, it has the value of satisfying people
in that world where everyone wants certainty.
Whereas, actually, what you need to live with is
that you don't know the answers.
So it would be better to just say,
that, "This is how we imagine this event might have taken place."
"These are the things we think might have happened."
Instead of…
What is it called? A Psychological Autopsy?
What we really need is a sociological autopsy.
At the heart of it, there seems to be
this mass resistance to talking about mental health
because we have stigmatized these conversations.
I think that is the reason why,
a lot of times, we never find out the truth.
I think the society does need to have these discussions.
Not having those conversations is perhaps not an answer.
The trouble is that unless we have those unsettling difficult conversations,
this might happen, again.
They handed over the bodies to us the next day in the evening.
Dinesh had also arrived by that time.
Dinesh and I identified and took custody of the bodies.
Looking at the bodies and carrying them…
We cannot forget that.
It was a difficult and horrible moment
when they made us identify each body by showing us the face.
The moment we got the approval for the cremation,
we took the bodies from the mortuary.
We had already covered an entire block on Nigambodh Ghat (cremation ground).
The area had space to accommodate 12 to 15 cremations.
All the formalities, from priest to making the pyre ready,
we did in advance.
At the cremation centre
there were so many people.
Their friends, family, relatives, neighbours.
Everyone was there.
Yet it was not enough people.
There weren't enough priests.
We weren't able to provide a priest per body.
We wanted…
that every ritual is done justice to.
Nothing should fall short.
So it was decided to appoint a single senior priest for all bodies.
And get him to perform all of the rituals.
That's when my mother and I saw Tina for the last time.
Lalit.
Shivam.
We told them,
at least let us see their faces for the last time.
So they showed us their faces.
That's the last time I saw her.
My mother cried inconsolably.
The final rites are usually done by a son or grandson.
Only selected few of the family are supposed to do the ritual.
There weren't 11 relatives present for the cremation to be done all at once.
Dinesh lit the pyre for one body and then moved to the next.
I was looking at Dinesh, the brother.
One by one, he did the rituals. He'd cry, then had to go to next body.
His son was doing it for another body.
Something that, I think, nobody should go through.
For the first time in my life,
I saw the last rites of 11 family members together.
Lord Krishna had said to Arjun…
"Hey, Arjun, our mind cannot be corroded."
"It cannot be destroyed or killed. It is indestructible. It is immortal."
Our tears had dried up.
But we were all thinking about the fond memories from the past.
But I will never…
I will never let go of those memories.
The memories will always remind me…
of the void they left behind.
I got to know from you that their eyes were donated.
I finally see some light.
At least there is some closure.
A small sigh of relief.
Whenever a death takes place somewhere,
the surviving family needs to be counselled
and motivated to donate the eyes of the deceased.
I salute Mr. Dinesh that he kept himself composed in such a situation
and made this choice on the same day
when three generations of his family had perished.
Even in that condition, he thought that…
…if he donates the eyes, it will somehow keep his family alive.
It makes me feel so angry and sad at the same time.
I wish that one of the children had given me even a hint.
They all had taken some kind of oath
that they'll not share this secret with anyone.
Whatever secret the 11 family members were hiding,
died with them that night.
They were good, normal people. They still are for us.
A lot has changed after their deaths.
Our shops were right across from each other.
We would see Bhuvnesh or Neetu at the shop.
Now we don't see them.
Imagine, our best days were yet to come.
Our kids were growing up. We would have celebrated their weddings.
We could have been together.
After the death of these 11 people,
we suffered major losses.
The area has been disgraced a lot.
Our shop was closed for nearly a year.
We just couldn't get anyone to come.
With time, all will be forgotten.
New people will move in. We will move on. That's the law of the world.
The urge to find answers
which will stitch this up neatly
and suddenly make sense of 11 people dead,
is very strong.
Sadly, they may or may not exist.
The closure is elsewhere.
Every case has an ending.
But here, there are many unanswered questions,
and those will always remain unanswered,
because there is no one to tell us what happened.
I think I relived each and every moment of covering that story.
All of it.
And tonight, when I go back home,
I think I'm gonna think about it for a while.
It's gonna stay.
It's already been a year.
But this conversation took me back in time, to last year.
I relived all my emotions and conflicts from that time. All over again.
Till today, people constantly ask me about this case.
It's still a mystery for them.
Even though, they've read about it in newspapers.
They've seen it on news. They know about it.
All the family is gathered here.
But they want to know the "real truth." I say, there's no other truth.
"What do you want to hear from me?"
Some people just won't accept the theory that is out.
Every case is different.
We put our heart and soul into catching the culprit.
I feel very happy when a case is solved.
And we solved this case.
That's it.
I wonder what they were thinking that night?
Why did they submit to this madness?
Something was definitely going on in their minds.
I stopped believing in God.
Parveen, my wife, tells me that I was never a believer,
but now I am a total atheist.
This episode played a major role in this.
If something like this could happen, where was God?
If God existed, he would have given at least one of them some wisdom
neighbouram or shout for help so that a neighbour may have heard them.
Where was God then?
The secrecy with which this happened,
it speaks of the lack of interconnectedness
of society.
So society actually needs to have these conversations,
even if they're unsettling, because telling the story of these people
is in itself…
giving closure…
both for them, and for us.