NEW DELHI: After a heated arguement with her doctor husband, a 32-year-old gynaecologist allegedly killed her twin four-year-old daughters by giving
them shots of poison before injecting herself with the same substance inside a hotel room at Pitampura in northwest Delhi on Wednesday night. She is currently battling for life at a city hospital.

The woman, Roopa Kupuri, is a senior resident doctor at Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini. The daughters Tanya and Twinkle, who were identical twins, were declared `brought dead' at Max hospital, Pitampura, where they were taken along with their mother.

Kupuri had stormed out of her home in Rohini on Wednesday afternoon and booked a room for the night at City Park hotel after a heated argument with her husband, Rajeev Ranjan, a surgeon at Raja Harishchandra Hospital, police said. Kupuri and Ranjan come from a family of medical practitioners with the parents of both being doctors. Kupuri's parents practise in Australia and Nigeria. The couple had reportedly fought over setting up a private nursing home of her own.

Kupuri appears to have taken her time in planning out the shocking act. According to P K Roy, the front office manager at City Park hotel, she checked in at 6pm along with her daughters. Half hour later, she used a hotel car to buy the poison and syringes. At 8.30pm, she reportedly called up her husband to tell him she was killing herself and the girls.

A police officer said as the hotel staff was trying to open the room, Rajeev reached the hotel along with the police. "The door had to be broken as it was latched from inside. Inside, the woman and the two girls were found unconscious. They were then rushed to hospital,'' he said.

The police said after Roopa had called up her husband, following which he immediately alerted the hotel and the police. "We found six syringes in the room out of which three were used. Things were strewn across the room including new toys for the kids, '' a senior police officer said.

Additional DCP (north west) Brahm Singh said, "An SDM enquiry has been initiated into the matter. We will register a case once Kupuri's statement is recorded.''

One of Kupuri's colleagues said she had been with Ambedkar hospital for the past two years. "Roopa is a very good and responsible doctor and there was never any complaint against her. She last reported for duty on the night of June 29,'' the doctor, not wanting to be named, said.

Roopa hails from Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh while her husband is from Bihar. The couple has been married for nine years and live in a rented accommodation on the ground floor at Sector 11, Rohini. Rajiv Ranjan's parents live nearby, at Maurya Enclave in Pitampura.