Mumbai: Just like any other day, at 8.30 pm yesterday, Mayuri and Maheshwari Patil (10 and 6) reached their third floor apartment at the State Reserve Police Force quarters, Gorega-on. But when they reached up to press the doorbell, they realised the door was ajar. Curious the girls peeped inside and saw a scene nobody should ever have to witness.

They saw their parents (Gulab Patil, a constable and his wife Chitra) lying in a pool of blood and their uncle, Aaba Salwe, standing by the bodies.

The shock of seeing their dead parents mobilised them and the kids ran down to the security guards outside the building and weeping copiously, told them their parents were dead. But by the time the guards reached the apartment, Salwe had escaped.

In the bathroom, they found the girls' sister Roshni (5), gagged. She was in a semiconscious state, whimpering in pain. When the cops picked her up, they realised her skull  had almost been cut open at the back.

Roshni is now in hospital and doctors said her condition was critical. "She is in shock. She has multiple fractures on her skull and is in a comatose condition. She hasn't spoken or cried since the time she was brought in," said Dr Kamlesh Shah, from the Lifeline hospital, Malad (E). 

According to the police, Aaba was Gulab Patil's cousin and had come from Dhulia district to collect the Rs 15,000 he had loaned to Patil last year. When Aaba realised that Patil was unable to pay it, in a fit of rage, he attacked the couple and Roshni with a sharp weapon. The couple died on the spot. "We have sent a search team to Aaba's village," said a Goregaon cop. The bodies have been sent for postmortem.

Meanwhile, Mayuri, who is being questioned by the police, asked them, "Is Roshni crying? Did she speak? How is she?"