India, Nov. 30 -- A 41-year-old home guard allegedly killed his wife and two minor children before posting a "cryptic WhatsApp status" and dying by suicide in a village under Deola tehsil of Maharashtra's Nashik district, police said on Sunday.

Police said the home guard was likely facing financial distress. He allegedly strangled his 35-year-old wife, their nine-year-old daughter and two-year-old son before hanging himself.

"Prima facie, it seems that the man killed his wife and children by strangling them and later hanged himself. After relatives received his cryptic status, they went to the house where the bodies were found," inspector Sarthak Nehete of the Deola police station said.

The man had reportedly posted "heartfelt tributes...