The daughter of a 31-year-old man who was recently thought to have committed suicide, alterted family members that he was in fact murdered by two intruders who hung him off a dupatta on the terrace of their residence in Noida. 

The 4-year-old daughter of Santosh Raghav had fallen unconscious the night her father was murdered. The family members who saw him hanging off a dupatta from their terrace assumed he had committed suicide and were preparing for his last rites when the child regained consciousness and narrated the alleged incident to them. 

“We were on our way to Bulandshahr on Sunday morning for the last rites. The daughter had fallen unconscious from what we thought was shock. When she regained her senses, she told Mamta (her mother) that two ‘uncles’ had come to the house on Saturday evening while Santosh was helping her study,” a family member said in a statement. She added that the girl saw them forcibly feeding Santosh with alcohol, and then assaulting him. “She said one of them was ‘healthy’ and the other was ’thin’. The thin man took him upstairs and with a dupatta hanged him on the terrace. The girl was so frightened that she hid herself in a room and fell asleep. When she got up, we were already on our way to Bulandshahr for the last rites. She asked about her father and when Mamta tried to tell her what had happened, she recounted the incident.”

The girl's official statement will reportedly be recorded soon. The body of the deceased has been sent for an autopsy and formal investigation will begin once the autopsy report is sent in.