Burari deaths

On 1 July 2018, eleven members of the Chandawat family were found dead in their three-storey home in the Sant Nagar neighbourhood of Burari, India. Ten of them, aged between 15 and 57, were found hanged in the house's courtyard; the eldest, 80-year-old Narayani Devi, was found strangled in a separate room. Police investigated the deaths and ultimately ruled that they were a ritual mass suicide connected to shared psychosis among family members, rather than a homicide.

The family ran a grocery shop and a plywood business in the area and had lived in the house for around twenty years after moving from Tohana, in the state of Haryana. In 2007, Lalit's father died of natural causes. Afterward, Lalit became withdrawn and told his family that his father's spirit had begun instructing him on how the family could attain a good life. From 2007 onward, Lalit, together with his niece Priyanka and his brother's daughter Nitu, kept diaries recording these purported instructions.

On the morning of 1 July 2018, a neighbour who usually walked with one of the family members went to the house after noticing that the family's shops, normally open between 5 and 5:30 am, were still closed and that Lalit had not joined him for their walk. The neighbour found the front door open and ten of the family members hanging inside, and alerted other neighbours. Police received a call reporting the deaths at around 7:30 am.

The ten bodies were found hanging close together from a mesh in the hallway ceiling, blindfolded with cloth cut from a single bedsheet, mouths taped, ears plugged with cotton, and in some cases hands and feet bound, with five stools found nearby. A post-mortem examination of Narayani Devi, found separately, showed no sign of struggle. Investigators recovered eleven diaries, kept over eleven years, whose descriptions of how hands and legs should be tied matched how the bodies were found, including a passage stating the eldest family member should lie on a bed rather than be hanged. The diaries also said family members would help untie each other's hands once the ritual was complete, which police said indicated they had not intended to die.

Given the case's public profile, pressure from hardline groups, and accusations of a cover-up from relatives, police initially investigated the deaths as a possible murder before concluding they were self-inflicted. Handwriting analysis indicated the diaries had been physically written by Priyanka and Nitu, who police said had thought they were transcribing instructions dictated by the spirit of Lalit's father. Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Alok Kumar said investigators found handwritten notes describing how family members' hands and legs were tied in a manner consistent with how the bodies were discovered, and the crime branch concluded that Lalit alone had tied the others. Psychologists consulted on the case attributed the deaths to a shared psychotic disorder, in which family members follow the lead of one individual, and suggested Lalit may have had a delusional disorder. The family's elder brother, who lived in Rajasthan and was not present in the house, disputed the suicide finding, saying he believed the deaths were a planned murder and that Lalit and his wife's hands should have been found untied if they alone had carried it out.

The family's pet dog, Tommy, was found alive but feverish, chained on the terrace, and was taken to an animal shelter in Noida for recovery. No individual was charged in connection with the deaths.