Rajkot: A double murder-suicide rocked Sandhavaya village of Gondal taluka in Rajkot district on Friday, as a 37-year-old cement factory owner, Jaypal Togadia, allegedly strangled his two minor children before taking his own life on Friday.The tragedy unfolded at the Gayatri Cement factory on Ghoghavadar Road in Gondal on Friday. According to police, Jaypal Togadia first killed his 15-year-old son, then his 10-year-old daughter and then hanged himself at the factory.The son was a Class 10 student who had recently scored 70% in his exams. The daughter attended a private school in Ramod. Togadia, who had been in the cement business for 15 years, took both children to the factory on the morning of the incident.On learning of the matter, a Gondal City Division police team, with emergency service personnel, rushed to the scene. All three bodies have been sent for postmortems, and an investigation has been begun.The principal factor appears to be financial distress. Police inspector J R Zala of Gondal City Division police station confirmed that at around 1.21pm, Togadia sent a video to a relative, saying his business was failing, which drove him to the drastic act. He explicitly said that his family was not to blame and that he had no debts.Preliminary inquiries suggest Togadia had taken his daughter to the factory in the morning and later called his son to join them. At the time of the incident, only Togadia and the children were there. Togadia’s wife was at their house. Togadia ran the cement factory and had acquired a second one recently. There was a recession in his business and he was in financial distress. His elderly father, wife and the two deceased children lived with him.
