Chennai: A 42-year-old woman succumbed to the burns she sustained in her suicide bid after she was reportedly harassed by the cops who went to arrest her husband, a history sheeter under preventive detention ahead of the RK Nagar by-poll, on Sunday night.
Sources said the deceased, identified as Padmavathi who owns a house in Neduncheliyan street, Chinthadripet, visited the tenants who had been contacted after the cops came looking for her husband and her son, at around 4.30 pm on Sunday.
A police team also arrived and questioned her about the whereabouts of her husband Mohan and elder son Pradeep. She argued with the cops that they had not committed any crime warranting their arrest. The cops pressed Padmavathi either to give away Mohan's location, or to send Pradeep with them.
After the cops left, Padmavathi set herself ablaze with a can of kerosene she had managed to grab from her mother's house in the neighbourhood, and she died late at night, not responding to the treatment at the KMCH.
Padmavathi is survived by her 4 children - Priyanka (21), Pradeep (19), Sanjay (17) and Sneha, (15) and her husband. “Mohan was involved in petty quarrels in the area a decade ago. He had made amends to his ways and is running a TV-cable service in the locality. Since the cops’ harassment mounted on the family in the aftermath of violence reported during the culmination of Marina-Jallikattu protest, the family rented out their house and moved to Mylapore to evade the harassment.
The cops threatened Padmavathi's tenants to vacate her house since her family was fighting several criminal cases but left it to them to decide on the same,” a relative requesting anonymity told DC.
“Sneha is good at ‘carrom’, and has won several accolades in State-level meets. Impressed by her feats, the Carrom Association is sponsoring a club building in Neduncheliyan, which is under construction,” another relative revealed.
Cops maintained that they went only to pick up Mohan and Pradeep. “We also had information about Pradeep's rivals plotting his murder and wanted to intervene," a senior police official noted.
The children petitioned the City Police Commissioner Karan Singha to act against erring Chinthadripet Police, whom the quartet claimed was responsible for their mother's drastic step.
