The Delhi Police said on Wednesday that they had found crucial CCTV footage in the house where 11 members of a family were found hanging last week. The footage shows a woman, Savita, and her daughter carrying stools into their home. Soon after, two teenage boys of the family enter their plywood shop on the ground floor to collect telephone wires, The Indian Express reported.

However, NDTV reported that footage it had exclusively accessed, and notes in 11 diaries written by two members of the family over 11 years, was evidence that they did not expect to die. The footage shows the family members voluntarily following the instructions of Lalit Chundawat, 45, who seemed to believe that his deceased father’s spirit would protect his family. Apart from him, his 30-year-old niece Priyanka Chundawat also wrote in the diaries.

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“...Keep water in a cup, when it changes colour, I will appear and save you,” read the last sentence in the final diary written on June 30, the night before they died, according to NDTV. After the ritual was over, everyone was to untie each other.

The last entry in the diary on June 30 also has instructions titled “Bhagwaan ka rasta” (Road to God). It said that nine people would hang from the grill, and one person – called Baby, Lalit Chundawat’s sister – would be near the family altar. The notes listed timings for the performance of each task, concluding with performing the kriya (act) at 1 am.

“This was a final thanksgiving to the spirits,” an unidentified police officer said. He added that the family felt a recent run of good financial fortune was the result of following Lalit Chundawat’s instructions.

The eleven bodies were found hanging in their home the morning of July 1. Murder charges had been filed in connection with the death of a 75-year-old woman who had been asphyxiated. The police had initially treated the deaths as murder cases.