Cops hunt for duo after woman’s suicide sparks row

K Sasikala of Ninarkuppam village in Kancheepuram, who worked in a garment company in Guduvanchery, killed herself on June 24. Though the family tried to hide the death by bury the body, the Cheyyur police retrieved and sent her body to a government hospital in Madhuranthagam for autopsy.

Investigation revealed that she was in a relationship with her relative Purushothaman for around four years. Due to opposition from her family, Sasikala snapped the relationship and decided to get married, which Purushothaman and his brother Deivendran, of the same village, said to be DMK members, did not agree.

On June 24, while her father Krishnan was sleeping outside the house, and mother and brother were out for work, Purushothaman allegedly assaulted her inside the house. She was later found hanging.

Sasikala’s brother Arun Babu raised a suspicion that Purushothaman might have murdered her and staged it as a suicide. “We came to know that she was continuously harassed by the siblings only after her friends told us at the funeral. They also said that Deivendran filmed Sasikala in an obscene manner and allegedly threatened her,” he alleged.

When contacted, inspector Chinnadurai said that the autopsy report said the cause of Sasikala’s death was due to hanging, and added that the duo would be nabbed soon. When asked about Sasikala having been threatened by Deivendran with obscene video, he said the family had not lodged any such complaint earlier.