The deceased are identified as Murugesh (40), owner of a small scale industry, his wife Shanthi (30), their children Lokesh (12) and Dinesh (9).

Murugesh lived in the second floor of the building, where he was running two small scale setups, M D tools and M L Plastics. The incident was discovered at around 6 am when his employees Murugesh, Ravikumar and Dhanshekhar came into the workshop. They noticed the smoke emerging from the window and alerted the neighbours and informed the police.

The four had doused themselves with kerosene in the verandah of the house and set themselves ablaze. The police narrowed down the time of the incident to have occurred between 5 am and 5.30 am. More than 30 litres of kerosene was used, it was found. Some of the furniture in hall and bedroom were also gutted.

Murugesh, a native of Tamil Nadu, hadmoved to this city during early nineties. He had shifted to the VI block house only three years ago.

According to neighbours, Murugesh was a conservative person and there was nothing to indicate that his family life was anything but normal. ``Not a single day in the last three years the family members quarrelled,'' said a neighbour.

Incidentally, parents of both Murugesh and Shanthi, who reside in areas close by, too confirm the stand that there was no apparent problems with their circumstances. Murugesh's father Doreswamy said that his son did not have any problems. ``He used to visit us regularly and he never told me that he had any problems. Our relationship was also cordial and he was doing well in business,'' he said. Murugesh's brother Ranga also echoed his father and said, ``I don't think he had any problems for taking to such an extreme step.''

Meanwhile, DCP (West) Nissar Ahamed visited the spot and the bodies have been sent to Victoria Hospital for post-mortem.