New Delhi, Feb 16 (IANS) A businessman was Saturday given death penalty for poisoning and strangulating his wife and three minor daughters to death three years ago as a city court cited it as the “rarest of rare” cases. Additional Sessions Judge B.R. Kedia held Rajkumar Khandelwal guilty of killing wife and three children and awarded him death sentence.

“It’s a case which falls under the category of the ‘rarest of rare’ as the man is responsible for the upkeep of his family and poisoning them is a shame,” said the judge in his order.

Khandelwal killed his wife Anita and daughters Alisha, Chamma and Jyoti by first poisoning them and then strangling them, the prosecution said.

The incident took place on the night of July 4-5, 2005 at the Hotel Gautam near the Old Delhi railway station.

The police had then recovered a letter reportedly written by Khandelwal confessing the crime.

During interrogations, he disclosed his identity and confessed to having murdered his wife and daughters.

According to the prosecution, Khandelwal had taken a bank loan of Rs.1.3 million for his iron-manufacturing business but was unable to repay the same due to huge losses. In acute depression, he decided to kill his family members.

“The loss in the business cannot be attributed to the lives of his wife and innocent children. He is the one who is responsible for it,” said the judge.

He visited several temples at different places, including Varanasi, Delhi, Haridwar, Jammu, Katra, Rishikesh, Agra and Mathura before reaching Delhi, and hired a room in the hotel, where he committed the bizarre crime of killing his wife and three daughters, the prosecution said.