Kathmandu, Aug. 11: Three Nepalis were killed in a suspected murder-suicide in Dallas, Texas. Police said the shooting happened at 2:10 am on Saturday in the 1900 block of Dudley Street, where 53-year-old Lalit Pradhan shot his wife, 37-year-old Ranjana Shrestha, and their three-year-old son, Pranish, before turning the gun on himself.

Ranjana and Pranish died at the scene. Pradhan, found with a gunshot wound and multiple cuts, was taken to a hospital but later died, according to CBS News. Police said he had long been on medication for depression. A day before the incident, Pradhan wrote on Facebook that he was under prolonged stress, unable to work, and that his family had been struggling without access to government services.

Bijay Bhusal, general secretary of the Nepalese Society of Texas, said preliminary information showed Pradhan was a Bhutanese refugee of Nepali origin and Shrestha a Nepali national. The organisation is coordinating with police and relatives in Nepal to arrange the repatriation of the bodies.

Police said early findings point to a murder-suicide. In a similar case on June 5, four members of a Nepali family were found dead in Manassas, Virginia, also in a suspected murder-suicide. That investigation is still ongoing.

People’s News Monitoring Service