House of Secrets - Burari Deaths Docu-series
Oct 16, 2021 14:15:26 GMT
forca84 and CrepedCrusader like this
Post by hi224 on Oct 16, 2021 14:15:26 GMT
A quick summary of the case for the unfamiliar:
In July of 2018, in the Burari district of Dehli, India, eleven members of a single family, spanning three generations, were found dead in their home. Not just dead, but hanged, their mouths gagged and their hands bound. They ranged in age from 12 to 80. Ten had been hanged from a grating in the ceiling of the first floor roof, and the last, the grandmother, was strangled while lying on her side because she was too weak to be with the others.
At first everyone thought it must be a case of mass murder. The more the case was delved into, though, the more the police realized it was a case of mass suicide. This explanation has left many unsatisfied, especially some loved ones and friends, who cannot believe that this family who was 100% normal, warm and loving and friendly, would all kill themselves - let alone in such horrifying fashion.
The write-up linked above covers the details of the case well, so I won't repeat them all here. The important part is that the police found diaries that detailed not just the 'ritual' that resulted, accidentally or otherwise, in the deaths of the family, but a history of what amounted to cult like behavior by the family. In the aftermath of the patriarch's death, his son Lilat filled the vacuum that was left, and claimed to be possessed by the spirit of his late father, and he essentially had tight control over the family.
There is more detail to the story and events, but my focus is on the documentary, which is heartbreaking and very well done. One of the topics it covers thoroughly is something we grapple with as true crime 'fans' - the way that in the aftermath of discovering the bodies, the story immediately was sensationalized, treated as some grisly, delightful horror story. The police hadn't even arrived on scene before somebody had crept around the house filming a video to upload everywhere. They struggled to get ambulances in to take away the bodies because there were so many people crowded in hoping to get a look at the bodies/crime scene.
News channels played up the numerology elements and other such things, one woman was harassed for compelling the family to suicide even though she'd never met the family. The contractor accused of assisting the family because of some pipes he installed sounded so bitter and tired as he explained how he'd had no role whatsoever.
Everyone saw it as a story to be horrified and mystified by, and forgot that eleven people, three generations of a single family, were dead.
Another thing it addressed was mental health. Lalit suffered a head trauma in a traffic accident, and later his employer attempted to kill him. Lalit was advised to speak with a therapist, and his family told to encourage him to do so, but the stigma against therapy is so strong that it never happened. How different might things have gone if he'd gotten help? It's a question no one will ever be able to answer.
Might things have also been different if there was not also a stigma against keeping family matters private? You see this a lot in domestic abuse cases and the like as well. The family presented a front of being happy, friendly, working hard to reach their goals. They'd just celebrated an engagement of one of the daughters (which the documentary believes may have been Lalit's tipping point - he was losing a member of his family, losing control of them). They had everything to live for, and according to the diaries fully believed they would be alive the next day.
At least, most of them did. Another unresolved component of this tragedy is who exactly knew what. Did Lalit intend for them all to die? Was his wife complicit? Did they all do this willingly, or were some of them forced to do it? Is this suicide? Murder? Accidental death? There's no real label for this kind of tragedy. The answer is on the surface simple - they performed a ceremony and it killed them. The answer is, as the documentary states, also incredibly complicated, because this wasn't simply a case of a family drawn into a mass psychosis that killed them. There was a much larger picture of society, of what's acceptable and what's taboo, of the way cases like this are turned into grisly dime novel type thrill stories and never given the true attention and discussion they merit.
The documentary closes with saying that until we're willing to have the hard discussions, instead of enjoying the thrill and then letting the problems slide away to enjoy the next thrill, tragedies like this will continue to occur.
Couple of additional links discussing the docu-series:
In July of 2018, in the Burari district of Dehli, India, eleven members of a single family, spanning three generations, were found dead in their home. Not just dead, but hanged, their mouths gagged and their hands bound. They ranged in age from 12 to 80. Ten had been hanged from a grating in the ceiling of the first floor roof, and the last, the grandmother, was strangled while lying on her side because she was too weak to be with the others.
At first everyone thought it must be a case of mass murder. The more the case was delved into, though, the more the police realized it was a case of mass suicide. This explanation has left many unsatisfied, especially some loved ones and friends, who cannot believe that this family who was 100% normal, warm and loving and friendly, would all kill themselves - let alone in such horrifying fashion.
The write-up linked above covers the details of the case well, so I won't repeat them all here. The important part is that the police found diaries that detailed not just the 'ritual' that resulted, accidentally or otherwise, in the deaths of the family, but a history of what amounted to cult like behavior by the family. In the aftermath of the patriarch's death, his son Lilat filled the vacuum that was left, and claimed to be possessed by the spirit of his late father, and he essentially had tight control over the family.
There is more detail to the story and events, but my focus is on the documentary, which is heartbreaking and very well done. One of the topics it covers thoroughly is something we grapple with as true crime 'fans' - the way that in the aftermath of discovering the bodies, the story immediately was sensationalized, treated as some grisly, delightful horror story. The police hadn't even arrived on scene before somebody had crept around the house filming a video to upload everywhere. They struggled to get ambulances in to take away the bodies because there were so many people crowded in hoping to get a look at the bodies/crime scene.
News channels played up the numerology elements and other such things, one woman was harassed for compelling the family to suicide even though she'd never met the family. The contractor accused of assisting the family because of some pipes he installed sounded so bitter and tired as he explained how he'd had no role whatsoever.
Everyone saw it as a story to be horrified and mystified by, and forgot that eleven people, three generations of a single family, were dead.
Another thing it addressed was mental health. Lalit suffered a head trauma in a traffic accident, and later his employer attempted to kill him. Lalit was advised to speak with a therapist, and his family told to encourage him to do so, but the stigma against therapy is so strong that it never happened. How different might things have gone if he'd gotten help? It's a question no one will ever be able to answer.
Might things have also been different if there was not also a stigma against keeping family matters private? You see this a lot in domestic abuse cases and the like as well. The family presented a front of being happy, friendly, working hard to reach their goals. They'd just celebrated an engagement of one of the daughters (which the documentary believes may have been Lalit's tipping point - he was losing a member of his family, losing control of them). They had everything to live for, and according to the diaries fully believed they would be alive the next day.
At least, most of them did. Another unresolved component of this tragedy is who exactly knew what. Did Lalit intend for them all to die? Was his wife complicit? Did they all do this willingly, or were some of them forced to do it? Is this suicide? Murder? Accidental death? There's no real label for this kind of tragedy. The answer is on the surface simple - they performed a ceremony and it killed them. The answer is, as the documentary states, also incredibly complicated, because this wasn't simply a case of a family drawn into a mass psychosis that killed them. There was a much larger picture of society, of what's acceptable and what's taboo, of the way cases like this are turned into grisly dime novel type thrill stories and never given the true attention and discussion they merit.
The documentary closes with saying that until we're willing to have the hard discussions, instead of enjoying the thrill and then letting the problems slide away to enjoy the next thrill, tragedies like this will continue to occur.
Couple of additional links discussing the docu-series:
