A bank employee and a married woman, both at odds with their families, ended their lives in separate instances in the city. The young mother also strangled her son before killing herself.
Sridhar (31), who was working as a recovery department manager for ICICI Bank, committed suicide by consuming poison at his house in HSR Layout Second Sector, on Saturday. His girlfriend (name withheld), who had also attempted to end her life in the same manner, survived and is in hospital.
According to the police, the couple was romantically involved for several years but the girl's family opposed their plans to get married. Dejected by this, they decided to end their lives and consumed poison on Friday night at Sridhar's residence.
It is suspected that Sridhar died because he had taken more poison. His girlfriend, on the other hand, panicked and called her family for help. Her family rushed to the spot and shifted her to hospital but they did not notice Sridhar's body in the bedroom. His death came to light when the house help came to clean the place in the morning, the police said.
The couple had also written a note which stated Sridhar would have looked after the girl till his last breath if her family had agreed for their marriage.
The police are also investigating claims that the couple had recently got married secretly in a temple and that they entered a suicide pact as the girl's parents were trying to get her married off against her wishes.
Twin deaths
Unable to endure the constant harassment from her parents for marrying outside her community, a 31-year-old woman strangled her six-year-old son and then hung herself at her house near Meenakshi temple on Bannerghatta Road on Friday evening.
Saritha married Asif Hussain (35) eight years ago against her family's wishes. She had been facing constant harassment from them since then and, according to the police, was ostracised by most relatives.
Matters improved marginally for the couple when they moved to the city after Mr. Hussain got a job in an IT firm here. However, their almost total disconnect from society started gnawing away at their relationship.
Neighbours in the apartment complex where they had been living for over five years told the police that the couple rarely had any visitors. In the last two years, they could often hear the couple quarrelling bitterly.
Mr. Hussain has told the police that he was in Chittoor attending a wedding when his wife took the extreme step. The death was discovered when Saritha's sister Geetha, one of the few relatives who had kept in touch with her, came visiting.
