Ghaziabad, Jul 5 (PTI) An unemployed man committed suicide after allegedly killing his wife and three children, police said Friday.

The incident took place at New Shatabdi Nagar under the Masuri police station in the wee hours on Friday, a police official said.

SSP Sudhir Kumar Singh said Pradeep was living in his parents' house along with his wife Sangeeta (32) and daughters Manaswi (8) Yashashwi (5) and Ojasvi (3).

He was a drug addict and was facing financial difficulties, the SSP said.

His wife Sangeeta was a nurse at the National Drug Dependency Treatment Centre in Kamla Nehru Nagar.

He doubted his wife's character, police said.

Pradeep's father Pheru Valmiki told police that he heard screams of her daughter-in-law around 4 am in the morning.

I tried to open the door of their room but failed, he told police, adding that then he called his neighbours, who too could not open the door.

"We immediately informed police, who broke open the door. We found bodies of Pradeep and his daughters lying on the bed. Sangeeta was lying in a pool of blood. She was crying," he said in the statement to police.

They were immediately rushed to the district government hospital for treatment but doctors declared them dead.

"Prima facie, it seems Pradeep murdered his wife Sangeeta by hitting her with a hammer on the head. He may have given poison to her daughters," the SSP said.

The bodies were sent for autopsy.

The cause of their death would be know after receiving the autopsy report, the officer said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)