A 37 year-old woman hailing from Chennai, who set herself ablaze in front of the Panjagutta police station in Hyderabad on Tuesday, after filing a complaint of cheating against her live-in partner, succumbed to her injuries at a hospital on Wednesday.
The victim, S Lokeswari, had suffered 60 per cent burns and was availing treatment in the state-run Osmania General Hospital.
On Tuesday evening, Lokeshwari, doused herself with petrol and set herself on fire after filing a complaint against her partner Praveen Kumar, accusing him of cheating her. The police personnel present in the station doused the fire and rushed her to a hospital. Initially she was taken to Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) and later shifted to Osmania.
Meanwhile, following Lokeshwari's death, police have booked a case against Praveen for abetting a suicide.
Preliminary investigations by the police revealed that the woman was in a live-in relationship with Praveen Kumar after the death of her husband, and were staying in Maqtha, Khairtabad. Lokeshwari, who hails from Chennai, had come into contact with Praveen, an employee at a jewellery shop in Hyderabad, through a matrimony site in 2012. They started living together in Hyderabad.
Praveen had helped Lokeshwari get a job in the same shop. However, differences cropped up between the two at some point. In 2014, Praveen filed a police complaint against her for alleged theft of gold ornaments. She was arrested and sent to jail. After release from the jail, there was a compromise and Praveen reportedly offered to pay Rs 7.50 lakh as compensation for the live-in relationship and she had agreed to the same.
Lokeshwari, who had moved to Chennai and was living with her mother, came to Hyderabad on Friday along with her friend Kannan to take the promised money from Praveen. However, Praveen kept delaying the payment and avoided her.
Following which, she along with her friend Kannan came to the Panjagutta police station and gave a written complaint against Kumar. Even as Kannan was sitting with a police officer, Lokeshwari came out and set herself ablaze.
IANS inputs