NEW DELHI: The initial post mortem reports of six of the 11 family members who were found dead at their house in Delhi's Burari's area on Sunday morning have revealed hanging as the cause of the deaths.Autopsy was conducted on the six bodies last night.The post-mortem examination of six persons, including the two children, has been carried out and so far, police have not found any signs of strangulation or scuffle, according to the officer.The bodies will be handed over to the family for last rites this afternoon.Delhi Police crime branch probing into the mystery behind the mass suicide would also question the fiance of the woman in the family who was supposed to get married later this year. Police are scanning through their call details as well.The possibility of the family being disciples of a godman practicing occult rituals is also being probed.The cops are also probing the internet search history of the family members.Eleven members of a family, including two minor boys, were found dead under mysterious circumstances at their home in north Delhi 's Burari on Sunday.The eldest family member, Narayani Bhatia, 77, was found strangled in another room. The rest, including two 15-year-old boys, allegedly used chunnis (scarves) with religious motifs and cables to hang themselves. They were gagged and blindfolded, with hands tied. Cotton buds were found stuffed in their ears.A diary found in the house had detailed instructions + for "mass salvation", including how hangings should be conducted. The Bhatias, who ran a shop in the area, seemed to have followed the instructions, some of which may have been written months ago. They conducted a "havan" hours before the suicides.The deaths came to light at 7.15am, when a neighbour, Gurcharan Singh, visited the house and alerted the police after witnessing the horror.“The Bhatia brothers had recently started a dairy business from their general store and used to open their shop at 5.30am. Today, however, my wife noticed that the shop hadn’t opened till 7am and many customers had lined up outside. I went in to check and found the main door unlocked. The entire family was hanging in the hallway,” said Singh, a retired train locomotive driver, said. ||||| The 11 members of a family, who were found dead in north Delhi’s Burari on Sunday morning, seemed to have reposed their faith on one thing — that God will miraculously appear and save them the moment they hanged themselves. 
 
 On Sunday morning, when police started their probe in the case, they suspected it to be a suicide pact. However, investigators remained clueless for over two hours about the motive until they chanced upon a detailed one-page hand-written note in the prayer area of the family’s house. Soon, police also recovered two notebooks, the pages of which discussed spirituality, salvation, the ritual and mentioned a few dates. 
 
 The recoveries of the notes, the signs of a ‘hawan’(a ritual involving burning of offerings such as ghee and grains) in the house and the manner in which the bodies were found have given police enough reasons to suspect that the family might have died in a religious ritual gone wrong. 
 
 “Almost every step mentioned in the note seems to be have been religiously followed by the family,” said a police officer. 
 
 The steps for “obtaining salvation” were written point wise in Hindi, each marked with an arrow. One important rule was that the family was to avoid using mobile phones and not disclose the rituals to anyone else. It took the police a few hours to recover their mobile phones from the house. Police refused to disclose from where they recovered the phones from inside the house. 
 
 As per the note, the ritual could only have been performed on Tuesdays, Saturdays or Sundays. “The family chose the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday as they wanted to avoid error or confusion. Since the ritual was lengthy, they probably performed it during the night to avoid any interference,” the officer said. 
 
 “The note spoke about the widows hanging separately. The 77-year-old Narayan Devi was found dead in an adjacent room and her widowed daughter was found hanging from a window grille, away from the rest of the family,” said the officer. 
 
 In keeping with instructions found in the note, the men of the family — Bhavnesh and Lalit — were found hanging next to each other. Similarly, the wives of Bhavnesh amd Lalit were found hanging next to each other from the iron grille as were the children and their 33-year-old niece, Priyanka. 
 
 “The ritual required participants to tie their hands and legs, blindfold and gag themselves and stuff their ears with cotton balls. Only Lalit’s wife Tina did not have any restrains on her, suggesting she was the one who tied everyone else’s hands before hanging herself,” said the officer. 
 
 The ritual involved the family members first tying the noose around their neck and then getting their hands bound. 
 
 “The moment they hanged themselves and began gasping for breathe, they would see God saving them,” said the officer, paraphrasing the note. 
 
 Other findings that added weight to the ritual theory were signs that a ‘hawan’ had been performed in the house hours before the deaths. “An iron vessel where the fire of the havan was started and other items used in the ritual were found in an adjacent room,” said the officer. 
 
 Prima facie it appears that the family had not cooked food the previous night. “The contents of the dustbin in the kitchen suggested that the family had ordered food from outside. It appears they were planning this for sometime,” said the officer. 
 
 Neighbours confirmed that the family was religious. “Every member of the family prayed thrice every day,” said Praveen Mittal, a close friend of the family. 
 
 All the notes of the ritual seem to be made by one person. Police said they will be sending the notes for forensic examination to identify the author and to ensure they were not placed to mislead the investigators. 
 
 Police said they have registered a murder case and are probing the case from all angles.
– Police say it's "still too early" to know how 10 family members ended up dead and hanging from the ceiling in Delhi, India, but some early details from their investigation into the deaths are dribbling out. The bodies of the 10, as well as that of an elderly woman found dead but not hanged, were discovered Sunday morning by a neighbor who went to the shop the family ran. The Times of India reports the family was allegedly hanged using cables and scarves that featured religious designs; cotton was reportedly found in their ears. Police originally said no suicide note was discovered, but a police statement now specifies that they did find handwritten notes that suggested there was involvement in "definite spiritual and mystical practices" that may be tied to the deaths, reports the BBC. The Hindustan Times has much more on the alleged writings, with an unnamed officer suggesting the family might have been participating in a religious ritual that they believed would end with God saving them from death. The notes allegedly detailed the days of the week on which the ritual could occur and specified how the bodies needed to be arranged, with certain men and women together and widows kept apart. "Almost every step mentioned in the note seems to be have been religiously followed by the family," per the officer. He added that only one woman was unrestrained, indicating she could have bound the hands of the others. Police are said to be reviewing the family's internet search history and interviewing the fiance of one of the dead, who was to be married this year.