'I will kill my family and myself'

"I lost everything, Vithalbhai. Please help me. Otherwise I will kill my family and myself."

Ketan Anuwadia, 39, wrote this in his eight-page suicide note in Gujarati, copies of which he sent to his friends.

He gave cyanide to his sons -- Rishi (10) and Debansh (5) -- and his wife Keena (33) before having it himself in his two-bedroom flat at Nikunj Chhaya Cooperative Society in Kandivli (West), Mumbai last week.

He continued in the letter: "But my request didn't have any effect on the heartless Vithalbhai, and he told me that it didn't matter if I lived or died. He asked me not to call him again for my money. I was shocked, because I treated him like my father and worked 15 years for him to expand his business. And he treated me this way. He didn't even show sympathy for my children."

Ketan, who was in the steel business, had last year sent raw materials and cash amounting to Rs 1.35 crore to Vithalbhai Patel, a businessman in Rajkot, Gujarat.

According to letter, he knew Vithalbhai for a long time.

Ketan had taken the raw materials from the market on credit, and when Vithalbhai refused to pay him back, he avoided his creditors.

Ketan, who studied only till class X, had a well-decorated flat worth between 20 and 30 lakh.

But he could not even sell it to raise money because there were some irregularities in the building's construction.

There are some wall paintings in his flat and they present a picture of so much joy that it is difficult to imagine that he ever thought of doing what he did.

"He used to love his children very much," says his elder brother Sudhir. "They were very lovable. They were his life. It is beyond imagination what his state of mind was when he gave them cyanide."

The children's room has many trophies, the latest being from the Sahara Ekta Navratri Utssav.

"His children were very active and he loved them very much, and always encouraged them… They used to participate in a lot of activities and always won prizes," says Ketan's close friend Hemant Goleria.

In his note Ketan also held one Santoshbai, who runs an ashram and is a good friend of Vithalbhai, responsible for his death.

"We are now going to verify the facts that Ketan mentioned in his suicide note," says Deputy Commissioner of Police R D Shinde. "Very soon we will send a team to Gujarat. If we find what was mentioned in the letter about Vithalbhai is correct, we will book him under section 306 (abetment of suicide). We are also investigating from where Ketan managed to get cyanide."

Ketan was workless for a year. He didn't have anything to do and whiled away his time by visiting some of his friends.

Goleria says, "He always used to be very nervous. Most of the time he was in my office. He was very helpful and had solutions for everyone's problems. But he failed to find solution to his own problem."