A day after a woman allegedly set herself on fire along with her three children in Giridih, the bodies of a 30-year-old mother and her three daughters were fished out from a farmland well at Manjhne under Gawan police station of the district on Wednesday morning.

The farmland was near the parental house of the deceased woman, Ruby Devi.

Devi was married to Deepu Chaudhary, a resident of Basodih in neighbouring Koderma district. Chaudhary had on Tuesday evening informed Devi’s parents that she had gone somewhere with her daughters.

On Wednesday, local residents found the bodies floating in the well and raised an alarm following which police arrived on the spot and fished them out.

The deceased have been identified as Ruby Devi (30 years), daughters Amrita Kumari (six years), Ritika Kumari (three years) and Gunjan Kumari (two years). Following the incident, Chaudhary faced the ire of Devi’s parents and relatives, who brought him to the crime zone and thrashed him. Police had to intervene to rescue him.

“There is a possibility of suicide in this case, however, it will be clear only after the investigation,” Giridih SP Surender Kumar Jha said.

In a similar incident a day ago, three minors were killed after a 36-year-old woman allegedly set herself on fire along with her children in Khurd village under Parsan Outpost of Giridih. As of Tuesday, the woman, who sustained severe burn injuries, was battling for her life at the community health centre in Rajdhanwar.

Talking about Devi’s death, villagers said that water in the well was not deep enough for anybody to drown. The well is only 7-feet-deep while the water level is only 4 feet. It doesn’t seem that the four of them died of drowning, villagers said, adding that blood was coming out from the mouths of all the deceased.

“The police are investigating the matter to ascertain whether the woman and her daughters were killed or committed suicide. They are awaiting a post-mortem report, which will clear the picture,” a police officer said.

However, the woman’s family members allege that since Devi gave birth to the third girl, her in-laws were torturing her. They had even allegedly beaten Devi 10 days ago. When the woman’s parents protested, Chaudhary asked them not to intervene in his family matter.