New Delhi, July 3: Investigators probing the mysterious mass suicide committed by an 11-member family in Delhi's Burari have found deceased Lalit Bhatia, 45, to be the one who led the hanging ritual.

The near-50 handwritten notes recovered from the Bhatia house shows Lalit was taking instructions from his "dead father". The writings in the notes have matched with Lalit's hand-writing, said a police officer.

In one of the notes retrieved, Lalit said he is receiving instructions from his late father on how to manage the business, property dealings and family responsibilities.

Although not all of the handwritten letters are dated, most of them appear from January. The frequency of the notes, as per the dates written on them, increased over the past few months. The last date is of June 25 - five days before the family committed suicide.

The notes also detail the manner in which the family was to perform the hanging ritual. Investigators said based upon the instructions, the deceased might had also "rehearsed" their suicide before ending their lives on Sunday.

"The notes repeatedly mentioned about performing ‘vat tapasya’ (worshipping the banyan tree). It made special mention of worshipping the hanging roots of the banyan tree. As per the notes, the ritual performers were to hang in a formation that would replicate the hanging roots of a banyan tree," a police official was quoted as saying by HT.

The deceased family members have been identified as Narayan Devi (77), her two sons Bhavnesh (50) and Lalit (45), her daughters-in-law Savita (48) and Teena (42), her daughter Pratibha (57), her grandchildren Priyanka (33), Nitu (25), Monu (23), Dhruv (15) and Shivam (15).

Bodies of ten among them were found hanging from an iron grill, blindfolded and gagged and with their hands tied behind. The eldest among the deceased, Narayan Devi, was lying dead on the floor in the adjacent room.

The autopsy report has confirmed "ligature hanging" as the cause of death, with no signs of struggle found.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 03, 2018 04:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).