Hyderabad: Upset that her mother questioned her for regularly chatting on the phone with a friend, a 20-year-old engineering student committed suicide by immolating herself using kerosene. She took her life when her mother and brother were away, from their home at Kondakal in Cyberabad police commissionerate.

It is said that the girl, N. Sruthi, 20, was using a new SIM card she had obtained without her mother’s knowledge, which enraged the latter.





Sruthi had lost her father at the age of three. Her mother Punyavathi, who works as a contract employee in the state government, was looking after the expenses of the family of three including her younger brother.

Sruthi was pursuing her second year engineering at SSJ Engineering College in the ECE (electronics and communication engineering) stream. For quite some days, Punyavathi noticed her daughter spending a lot of time talking on the mobile phone.

On Friday evening, when she found Sruthi talking on the phone again, Punyavathi took away the phone. She then discovered that Sruthi was using another SIM card. This led to an argument between the mother and daughter. However, the family went to sleep without incident, police said.

On Sunday morning, after Ms Punyavathi and her son left the house on some work Sruthi set herself ablaze at home.

Shankarpally inspector N. Lingaiah said, “The girl’s mother found that she was talking to a friend continuously and also that she had taken a new phone number. The arguments between them occurred on Friday. The next morning, when her mother and brother left home, Sruthi set herself ablaze and died on the spot.” The inspector said that Ms Punyavathi told the police that she had asked Sruthi not to waste time chatting with friends.

Based on a complaint given by Ms Punyavathi, police registered a case under Section 174 of the CrPC (suspicious death). Sruthi’s body was handed over to her family after the autopsy at the Osmania General Hospital mortuary, the inspector said.