KANGAR: Three members of a family of four might have committed suicide in Sungai Arau on Wednesday as they were allegedly under tremendous pressure due to debts.
They were a couple, aged 66 and 64, and their 35-year-old daughter, said Perlis police chief SAC Noor Mushar Mohamad.
He said the police learned about this from the fourth member of the family, the 37-year-old son of the couple.
The son was arrested in Taman Ria, Sungai Petani on Thursday night.
Noor Mushar said the surviving family member told them that he too had wanted to join the others, but changed his mind later.
“The three had jumped into Sungai Arau after consuming poison,” Noor Mushar told reporters here yesterday, adding that the son, who was unemployed, had returned to Sungai Petani by train from Arau on Thursday morning.
It is believed that the three family members drowned between 8.35am and 12.10pm on Wednesday. The elderly man’s body was found at a sluice gate of Sungai Tambun Tulang in Simpang Empat, his wife’s in Sungai Tambun Tulang and their daughter’s in Sungai Arau near Kampung Belat Batu.
Noor Mushar said the four of them had taken a train from Sungai Petani to Arau on Tuesday morning and then hailed a taxi to get to Kampung Bakong, the village where the mother had come from. — Bernama