CHENNAI: A man and his four-year-old son died while his wife and eight-year-old daughter are under treatment after the family consumed a cake laced with poison.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the woman was undergoing treatment for cancer which had distressed the family, said the police, adding that "Happy Family" was written on the cake.
The police were alerted after the daughter called the control room on Wednesday morning, after a team rushed there and broke into the house. There, they found the man hanging, while his wife and two children were lying unconscious on the bed.
All of them were rushed to the hospital, where the man and son were declared as brought dead. The woman and the daughter are undergoing treatment.
S Sagaya Sebastian (43), who worked as an account staff at a warehouse in Madhavaram, lived with his wife, Rexy Beula (38), and their children, Evangelin Alvina (8) and Ivaan Anto (4), in a rented house on Sankara Madam Street in Perambur.
Beula was undergoing treatment for cancer, said the police. On Tuesday night, Sebastian bought cake from a neighbourhood bakery and is suspected to have laced it with poison. After feeding cake to the family members, Sebastian took his own life, police said.
The police have sent the bodies of the father and son for post-mortem and the remnants of the cake for analysis.