LONDON: An Indian-origin father who was found hanging here earlier this year strangled his wife and twin teenage daughters before committing suicide following a violent row over his in-laws allegedly “cheating” him out of money, a UK court has been told. Rethish Pullarkattil Kunjunny murdered wife Shighi Padmanabhan and his 13-year-old daughters Niya and Neha at their family home in Essex, north-east of London, in May. Two days later, the 44-year-old’s body was found near a reservoir in east London with a note which said: “My mother in-law cheated me.”

During an inquest last week at Walthamstow Coroners Court, it emerged that in the week before the murders Kunjunny attacked 37-year-old Shighi following a dispute about a property in India. Detective Sergeant John Logan, who investigated the deaths, said: “She (Shighi) had been punched and kicked and she had done the same back in retaliation.”

Then on the day of the murders, May 10, a friend went round to the family home in the afternoon when Shighi said the “marriage was over” and they would be getting a divorce. “During that visit Kunjunny said words to the effect of ‘if she wants a divorce that is what she can have’.