(Editor’s note: This post has been updated)
Police investigating apparent murder suicide after neighbors found couple’s four-year-old daughter crying.
North Arlington Police said Friday that Indian national Arati Balaji Rudrawar, 30, was stabbed to death by her husband, Balaji Bharat Rudrawar, who was also found dead with stabs from the same knife.
A local news portal, NorthJersey.com said police had “not yet determined who stabbed Balaji, an information technology professional. It added that prosecutors, however, “do not believe anyone else was involved in the deaths” — which indicates that it was a murder suicide.
Arati Rudawar was pregnant with the couple’s second child.
The two were found dead inside their apartment in North Arlington on Wednesday.
Police responded to the apartment at 5:40 p.m. after receiving a 9-1-1 call from a concerned neighbor asking for a welfare check on the residents, according to Bergen County prosecutor.
Officers forced entry into the apartment at 21 Garden Terrace, North Arlington and found a deceased male and female, he said but gave no other details.
However, local media reports identified the couple as Balaji Bharat Rudrawar, 32, and his wife Arati Balaji Rudrawar, 30, hailing from the temple town of Ambajogai in Maharashtra’s Beed district, about 300 miles from Mumbai.
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Police was alerted after neighbors saw their four-year-old daughter crying alone in the balcony of their house.
The husband apparently stabbed and sliced his wife in the abdomen as she unsuccessfully tried to fight him off in their living room, one report said.
Investigators were waiting for the medical examiner to determine the cause and circumstances of the death, but confirmed both victims had been stabbed, it added.
Rudrawar, an IT professional and his homemaker wife moved to the US in August 2015 after they got married in December 2014.
Balaji’s father Bharat Rudrawar told an Indian media outlet that his daughter-in-law was seven months pregnant. His granddaughter was now with a friend of his son.
US authorities had also informed him that it will take at least 8-10 days for the bodies to reach India after necessary formalities.
Meanwhile, according to an Indian media report Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule has appealed to India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to help the deceased couple’s four-year-old daughter.
“Kindly look into the matter and conduct a thorough investigation of the matter. Also requesting to help their daughter who is alone and without any help and assist in making necessary arrangement for the child to return to family in India,” she said in a tweet.