Chandigarh, 27 May

Six members of a family were found dead inside a car parked in Haryana's Panchkula, while one more died on way to a hospital, police said on Tuesday, suspecting a suicide pact.

Panchkula Deputy Commissioner of Police Himadri Kaushik, said, "Prima facie, it appears to be a matter of suicide. However, further investigations are on."

The car was parked in a residential area in Panchkula's Sector 27 and was spotted by a passerby late last night.

Police identified one of the deceased as Praveen Mittal, 41, the others as his wife, the couple's three minor children, two of them girls, and his parents.

A local youth said he was out for a walk last night when he spotted the Dehradun-registered car parked on a road with a towel hanging out from one of its doors.

He went close and found six people in the car motionless, lying on each other with vomit on them. The seventh he found breathing with difficulty, yet managed to tell him that his family was under huge debt and that he was going to die.

The man raised an alarm and all seven were rushed to a hospital, police said.

Kaushik said six people were taken to a private hospital, while one was taken to the civil hospital. However, "all seven died," she said.

"At the moment, we are investigating the case from all angles. We are questioning the people in the area and going through the CCTV footage," DCP (Crime), Panchkula, Haryana, Amit Dahiya said.

A relative of the deceased told reporters that the family originally lived in Panchkula and had returned to the city recently after living in Dehradun for a few years.