Affair gone sour: Bengaluru's first woman cab driver ends life

Bengaluru: Veertha Bharthi, the city’s poster girl - she was the first female cab driver in the IT capital - took her own life after her relationship with her live-in lover soured, sources close to the couple told Deccan Chronicle.

The celebrated woman cab driver of Bengaluru, who was an active member of the LGBT community may have taken the extreme step after she and her former live-in partner, a transgender broke up, her fellow activists said.

The 39-year-old who was found hanging from a ceiling fan at her first floor residence in Nagashetty Halli on Monday night, was an activist associated with an NGO working for the upliftment of LGBT communities.

Sources at the NGO who worked closely with Bharathi and were aware of her relationship with the female-to-male transgender said that they had witnessed the couple getting physically violent with one another, with the transgender getting physically and verbally abusive towards Bharathi.

“They have been in a relationship for several years, and we have seen the transgender becoming physically abusive towards Bharathi. We saw one such incident just near our NGO office in Benson Town where the transgender worked as an activist, recently, and the other time at Bharathi’s home in Nagashetty Halli where they had lived as a couple for some time.

Both the incidents of physical abuse happened sometime last week and Bharathi was very depressed,” said a friend of Bharathi, an activist working for LGBT community, who did not want to be quoted.

The activist said that Bharathi was upset and angry that the transgender had not been faithful to her and had other relationships, with the transgender leaving the house and Bharathi living alone this last week.

However, another friend, neighbour and a fellow activist Guru Kiran rubbished reports that Bharathi's broken relationship was the sole reason for the suicide. “That’s baseless. It may have been a trigger, but that's all it was.

She took her own life because she was depressed, but more than anything, what we should remember about her is that she was a selfless individual who worked for the betterment of women and the LGBT communities,” Guru Kiran told Deccan Chronicle.

Meanwhile, police, investigating the suicide of Bharathi are in the process of unlocking her phone to retrieve messages and other call detail records (CDRs). Bharathi's sister has arrived in the city from Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, and her statements were also recorded by the Sanjay Nagar police.

The post-mortem was conducted at M.S. Ramaiah Hospital after which Bharathi’s body was handed over to her family.