An HIV-positive couple in Bombay killed their three children and then committed suicide after discovering that their six-year-old daughter had contracted the virus. Campaign groups said that the incident underscored the stigma that the condition carries across the sub-continent.

Babu Ishwar Thevar, 39, his wife, Amothi, 33, two sons Venkatesh, 10, and Mani, 8, and daughter, Mahalaxmi, 6, were found dead in their home on Tuesday night. It is thought that the parents gave the children sweets laced with poison.

Police believe that the two boys were killed by the poison but that the girl survived. She was found smothered to death.

The parents were discovered in a separate room. They had hanged themselves.

The couple, who lived in a middle-class district of Bombay, had hidden their infection from everybody except the father’s brother, who discovered the bodies.

Campaigners say that such situations are not uncommon in India, where HIV/Aids carries a massive social stigma. The UN estimates that 2.5 million people are infected across the country and has said that India is in the grip of a serious epidemic.

Knowledge about the illness is often confused — even among India’s professional medical community — but it is widely connected with sexual activity, which is a taboo topic in what remains a deeply conservative country.

Past series of shocking “skull and crossbones” government adverts served to nurture fear without educating the public — particularly in rural areas where literacy levels are still low. Children’s organisations are known to have refused to take in orphans whose parents died of Aids.

Even in cities, counselling services are rare, leaving those who suffer from guilt and depression chronically undersupported.

Meghna Girish, the co-ordinator of a programme for people living with HIV/Aids in India run by the charity ActionAid, said: “Even after an Aids patient’s death, people are often scared to touch the body, making last rites a problem.”

Anasuya, a widow in her twenties, told a research team from the charity: “In villages people do not distinguish between HIV and Aids, the last stage. They treat us as worse than Untouchables.”

This week the Government was forced to issue an edict demanding that “all doctors, nurses and hospital staff, whether in public or private sector, shall treat HIV-positive people in a professional and humane manner.” The statement followed a string of reports of mistreatment of HIV sufferers.

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