3rd body recovered a day after woman, toddler found dead in Kerala river; cops suspect family suicide

KOCHI: A day after a woman and her two-year-old son were found dead in the Muvattupuzha River near Piravom, the body of her husband was recovered on Saturday, raising suspicion that the family died by mass suicide.Police said the couple’s elder child, a six-year-old girl, remained missing. The deceased have been identified as Biji Narayanan, 40, of Muvattupuzha; her husband, Narayanan, 43; and their two-year-old son.Police registered an FIR of unnatural death on Friday after fishermen spotted the boy’s body in the river near the Mulakulam Paittukuzhi bridge around 2pm, followed shortly after by the mother’s. Narayanan’s body was recovered on Saturday, not far from where the other two were found. “Based on the suspicion that all the members of the family may have died by suicide, we held searches in the river till sunset, but the girl couldn’t be traced. Scuba divers of the fire force too conducted searches,” a senior police officer attached to Piravom police station said.The officer said that autopsies of all three were conducted, and the preliminary post-mortem finding was that the deaths were caused by drowning.

“Prima facie there are no other injuries indicating foul play. We are investigating how they executed it. The primary suspicion is that they jumped together. CCTV footage and mobile tower location data are being examined to confirm this,” the officer said.He added that the family had been under severe financial stress. “Financial problems could have driven the person to take the extreme step. After the marriage, the woman was not maintaining any connections with her parents either,” he said.