POLICE last night confirmed formal identification had taken place of the victims of a double murder and suicide.The bodies of Dr Jaya Prakash Chiti, 41, and his two-year-old son Pranau Chiti, were discovered beneath the Orwell Bridge on Sunday.

By Danielle Nuttall

POLICE last night confirmed formal identification had taken place of the victims of a double murder and suicide.

The bodies of Dr Jaya Prakash Chiti, 41, and his two-year-old son Pranau Chiti, were discovered beneath the Orwell Bridge on Sunday.

The doctor had murdered his 36-year-old wife Anupama Chiti at the couple's home in Seckford Close, Rushmere St Andrew, while his 11-year-old son Ani slept - before plunging off the bridge with his younger son.

A spokesman for Suffolk police confirmed yesterday identification of the bodies had now taken place and a full report into the circumstances surrounding the deaths would be made to the coroner for a full inquest to be held at a later date.

Meanwhile, news of the tragedy was continuing to reach friends and relatives of the doctor in his native India yesterday.

As family awaited the return of his wife Anupama - a consultant radiologist at Ipswich Hospital - and his son Pranau's bodies back to India, his cousin Sudhir Kumar, revealed the harrowing details of how the news had been broken.

He told an Indian newspaper that friends of the doctor informed his parents about their deaths late on Sunday night.

Mr Chiti's uncle, Muralidhar Rao, said: "Suffolk police informed Anupama's brother Ashok Rao, an engineer working in the US, and he told us. We have no information on how they died. We were initially told that they were killed in road mishap."

It is believed that Mr Chiti's father, Dr Jalapathi Rao Chiti, 70, a retired superintendent of Nizamabad Government Hospital, then rushed to the house of his elder son Surya Prakash in Hyderabad.

Dr Jalapathi runs the ten-year-old Maitri Nursing Home in Bangalore.

Close family friends described the couple as a jovial and social couple who commanded the respect of everybody.

Chartered accountant Mr D Goutham expressed his shock and dismay.

Refusing to accept the police theory that Mr Chiti stabbed his wife and then jumped off the Orwell Bridge with his son, he said the suggestion of murder was unbelievable.

He said: "Dr Jaya Prakash came to my house on January 27 and spent more than two hours and never during the conversation did he sound disturbed or perturbed."

Mr Chiti had studied in Siddartha Medical College at Vijayawada and qualified in general medicine at Davangere, Karnataka.

His murdered wife, Anupama, a native of Marlegudem in India, studied at radiology at Gandhi Medical College.

The couple recently visited Nizamabad in India together with their two-year-old son Pranau to attend the inauguration of the new building for Maitri Nursing Home on January 26.

Their bodies will be taken to Hyderabad, India, where many of their relatives live, on February 4.