India, Oct. 10 -- A former jawan with the Maharashtra Security Force (MSF) has been arrested for Tuesday's gruesome attack on an elderly couple and their daughter while they were asleep in their Virar home.

Police said the former jawan, who lived in the same village as his victims, had planned to steal gold jewellery from their home, to repay some of the colossal debt he had racked up in online cricket gambling, said an officer with the Mira Bhayander-Vasai Virar crime branch. The officer said the debt amounted to around Rs.50 lakh.

Dipesh Ashok Naik, 29, was arrested at the private firm where he worked as a security guard in Mumbai. He had snuck into the ground-floor home of the Gowari family in Arnala Bandarpada village in Virar west,...