An NRI doctor couple and their two-year-old son were found dead in the United Kingdom under mysterious circumstances.

Dr Jayaprakash Chiti is believed to have stabbed Anupama Damera (36), a breast cancer consultant, at their home before jumping off a 40-metre high bridge with his two-year- old son, Pranau, in Ipswich on Sunday, police said on Monday.

The bodies of Chiti and the boy were recovered from the River Orwell near the Orwell Bridge at Ipswich by police and ambulance crews at 3.45am.

An alarm was raised when police received a report about an abandoned car at the bridge in the early hours on Sunday. Police called in coast guards who searched the river under the quarter-of-a mile long bridge from a launch. They discovered the bodies in the water by the bridge.

The car was traced to a house a few kilometres away in the village of Rushmere St Andrew.

When they broke in, they discovered Damera's body with stab wounds in the bedroom. Another boy, aged 11, was found alive in the family home. It is thought that he was probably asleep in the house at the time of the murder. The couple, who hailed from Nizamabad district of Andhra Pradesh, had an arranged marriage in India, where Damera did her medical studies before shifting to England and training as a radiologist in Nottingham.

A Nizamabad report, quoting police, said Chiti had visited Nizamabad in January to attend the inauguration of a private hospital and returned to the UK on January 26.

"What we believe happened is that the man killed his wife by stabbing her to death and then went over the bridge with his two-year-old son,'' Detective Superintendent Roy Lambert said.

The tide was out when Jaya Chiti jumped from the bridge and police believe he and his son landed on solid ground.

Anupama Chiti was a consultant radiologist at Ipswich Hospital; her husband worked in the hospital's emergency department.

Kanti Karia, clinical director of diagnostic imaging at Ipswich Hospital, said Anupama Chiti, who used her maiden name Damera at work, qualified as a doctor in India in 1990.