A 20-year-old woman was found burnt to death in the toilet of NSS College for Women at Tripunithura here on Tuesday morning. The deceased was identified as Vidhya G., a final year B.Com. student at the college, who was living with her aunt’s family at BTC Road, Maradu.
Police suspect that she committed suicide. “From a preliminary investigation, we suspect that the girl committed suicide as she had an affair with a person. Her family, meanwhile, was pressurising her to marry another person. We are probing the cause of death and will know more details after the post-mortem examination,” said a police officer.
Students who went to the toilet around 8.20 a.m. saw fire and smoke coming out of one of the stalls. The toilet door was burnt and the woman’s charred body was lying inside. College officials informed the police, who arrived on the scene to investigate. “Smoke was still coming out of the body when we arrived around 8.45 a.m. We found a bag containing books and a lunch box beside the body. The girl was identified initially from the name on the books,” said Tripunithura sub-inspector T.R. Santhosh.
The girl’s body was taken to Alappuzha Medical College for post-mortem examination. Police informed the girl’s parents Gopalakrishnan and Jayanthi, who live in Madurai.
‘A good student’Teachers in the college said there was nothing in the girl’s behaviour to indicate that she was under pressure. “Vidhya was in class yesterday. She was a good student and her teachers said it did not appear that the girl was troubled in any way,” said college principal K.N. Gopalakrishna Kurup. He also said the gates of the college were well-guarded and an outsider could not have entered the campus.
Mr. Kurup said the college would remain closed for the week.
