On July 1, 2018, eleven members of the Chundawat family were discovered dead in Burari, Delhi, India. Among the eleven, 10 members committed suicide by hanging themselves. However, the eleventh member, i.e. the oldest one (the grandmother), was strangled to death. According to the police, the Chundawats suffered from a mental disorder known as shared delusion or psychosis. This disorder is the reason why they did the unthinkable.
The Chundawat family’s neighbors also called them the Bhatia family. They resided in a two-story house in Burari’s Sant Nagar neighborhood. The family previously lived in Tohana, Haryana. However, for the past 20 years, Burari’s Sant Nagar neighborhood has been their permanent home. This family had two businesses – a grocery shop and a plywood business.
Who were the victims of the Burari Deaths?
According to The Time of India, here are the names of all the Chundawat family members who passed away on that fateful night.
- Narayani Devi (80), mother of Bhuvnesh, Lalit, and Pratibha.
- Pratibha Bhatia (57), widowed daughter of Narayani Devi.
- Bhuvnesh (50, also spelled as Bhavnesh), elder son of Narayani Devi.
- Lalit (45), younger son of Narayani Devi.
- Savita (48), wife of Bhuvnesh.
- Tina (42, also spelled as Teena), wife of Lalit.
- Priyanka (33), only daughter of Pratibha.
- Monu (called “Menaka”) (23), younger daughter of Bhuvnesh.
- Nitu (25, also spelled as Neetu), elder daughter of Bhuvnesh.
- Dhruv (called “Dushyant”) (15), only son and youngest child of Bhuvnesh.
- Shivam (15), son and only child of Lalit.
According to India Today, this ritual mass suicide was orchestrated by Lalit. He was following his deceased father’s instructions and his family was practicing them for an entire decade. In 2021, Netflix released a three-part docu-series, titled House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths, that explained this horrific case in detail.
