Internet chat leads girl to suicide
By:
A friendship initiated on the Internet ended
disastrously when a 19-year-old girl committed suicide yesterday after being
‘‘tortured’’ by her one-time chat companion.
Mohua Subhash Choudhari, a student of mechanical engineering at Rizvi College,
Bandra, was found hanging from a cloth tied to the ceiling fan at her residence
at Rajhan building, Mira Baug, Santa Cruz (West), Mumbai last evening.
A suicide note found in the room by police said that Ankush Advani, a youth she
befriended on the Net, is the ‘‘only person to blame since he had been torturing
me emotionally, mentally and physically and had even threatened to rape and kill
me’’.
Advani, who is in his early 20s, has been arrested by Santa Cruz police and
remanded to police custody for seven days. He has been charged with abetting
suicide.
Santa Cruz police said Chaudhari had made friends with Advani a few months ago
during a chat session on the Net.
Advani was then studying engineering in Los Angeles, and the two soon began
chatting regularly online.
Last month, the boy returned to his home at Ivory Apartments, Santa Cruz (West),
and the two met.
The meeting resulted in an altercation, and Advani even assaulted Chaudhari at a
subsequent meeting on December 13, after which the girl lodged a complaint with
the Santa Cruz police.
Police then summoned Advani to the police station and warned him, but he
continued to stalk her. He would often attempt to forcibly enter her home when
she would be alone during the day, after her parents had gone to work. She had
no siblings.
On December 31, he allegedly pulled her out of her house, forced her to get into
an autorickshaw and assaulted her.
The girl that day lodged a second complaint, this time at Bandra police station,
before returning home, police said.
‘‘This repeated harassment by the boy had apparently upset her a lot,’’ said a
police officer.
On January 1, Chaudhari left for her friend’s house in the morning. When her
father returned home in the evening, he found the door locked from within. When
he opened it with his keys, he found the girl hanging from the cloth tied to the
ceiling fan.
Assistant Inspector Harish Goswami said the case is being investigated and
police are recording statements of all concerned.
According to Mrinal Nag, a family friend of the Chaudharis, the episode has
upset all of them.
“Her parents are deeply upset and are not even in a position to speak,” he said.
With inputs from Namrata Bhatia
Courtesy http://www.mid-day.com/news/city/2003/january/40580.htm
BACK TO INDIAN PARENTING