Mugu : The district police have transported the bodies of four members of a single family who were found dead in Chhayanath Rara Municipality-6 in Mugu district to the district headquarters, Gamgadhi for autopsy. Four members of a single family in Mandu village, a mother and her three children, were found dead in their home last Friday.

The deceased have been identified as Sridevi Bohara, 28, her 11-year-old son Manoj, nine-year-old daughter Apsara and eight-month-old son Rahar, said Deputy Superintendent of Police Birendra Thapa at the district police office. Bodies of the four deceased have been taken to Gamgadhi for a postmortem and their examination will take place today itself, he said. The bodies of the four were received only after Dipak, spouse of deceased Sridevi, reached home from a foreign job, said Khem Bahadur Rawal, ward chair of the municipality.

According to preliminary police investigations, the four were murdered with sharp weapons. A team of police along with a detection dog reached the incident site on Saturday and launched an investigation while a special team from the province police office has also been investigating the incident, said the police. The incident site is located southeast of Gamgadhi, the district headquarters.

Preliminary police inquiries suggest that on Oct 24, Sridevi, along with her children, had visited her maternal home in the nearby Kotilla village to receive Dashain tika. They returned to their home the following evening. It is believed that they may have been murdered the same night, according to the police.

On Oct 26, when the neighbors noticed that the main door of Sridevi’s house was locked, they assumed that the family had gone to their farmland to collect vegetables. However, on Oct 27, concerned about their whereabouts, the neighbors contacted Sridevi’s maternal relatives. They were informed that Sridevi had left her maternal home on Oct 25. In response, the neighbors broke open and entered her house at around 10 am, only to discover the lifeless bodies of the four family members.