’Ditched’ by Facebook lover, 14-year-old girl hangs self

mangaloretoday.com

Bangalore, Nov 6, 2013, DHNS: “Ditched” by her Facebook lover who befriended her just one-and-a-half-months ago, a teenage girl reportedly hanged herself at her home in Mahalakshmi Layout here on Tuesday evening. Police have arrested the man for abetment to suicide and rape.

Manoj Kumar, 22, a BCom student from Nandini Layout, was arrested after he was named in a three-and-a-half-page handwritten suicide letter reportedly left behind by the 14-year-old victim.

 

Hours before the reported suicide, the girl and her younger brother visited a relative near their house. At 3.15 pm, she left him there and returned home.

Their parents were away at the time. When her mother returned home in the evening, she found her hanging with a dupatta from the ceiling fan in her bedroom.

The door had been first locked. Her mother then called her, knocking on the door. But when the girl did not respond, she called up her husband who rushed home and broke the door open, only to find their daughter dead, police said.

Giving the reasons for her extreme step, the girl, who was a class 9 student, said she was “dejected” as Kumar had “ditched” her. The two struck up a friendship after she accepted a Facebook friend request sent by Kumar on September 18. She had joined Facebook on October 29, 2012.

They then began courting each other. On October 4, Kumar called her to his house, an invitation she promptly accepted. When she went to the house, Kumar was alone there. He then “forced” her into physical relationship, police quoted the girl as having written in the letter.

Harassment

The girl claimed the suspect “harassed” her for the phone numbers of her female friends, saying he wanted to talk to them.

For the last two weeks, however, he began “avoiding” her. When she asked him to marry her, he “ditched” her, saying the physical relationship was “just for fun”.

He also told her that he would only marry the girl his parents would choose. Thereafter, Kumar “completely blanked her out” and did not respond to any of her messages, the girl further said, adding that the “humiliation” was too great for to her tolerate.

Police sources said the girl did not have a computer at home or a personal mobile phone. According to her parents, she might have visited Facebook at a cyber cafe.

Initial investigation revealed that the mother had noticed her daughter calling the suspect from her mobile phone a few times. Even she called him sometime ago and warned him against “harassing” her daughter.