A woman in China died by suicide after her family forced her into an engagement with a blind date.  According to the South China Morning Post, the 19-year-old named Tongtong was pressured into getting engaged to a man she had only met five days before. 

Notably, the teen ran a small clothes shop with her mother in their hometown. Her mother thought the groom’s better-off financial situation would ”make her life easier”. Though Tongtong felt reluctant when the man proposed, her mother and a matchmaker persuaded her to accept.

At the engagement ceremony, the man’s family gave Tongtong’s mother 270,000 yuan (Rs 33,40,730) bride’s price. However, she did not like the man as he was rude and demanding. She even tried to break off the engagement but the matchmaker convinced her not to do so citing her mother’s financial constraints. 

However, 17 days after the engagement, she took a drastic decision and threw herself into the river near her home. After her death, her fiancé demanded her mother return the bride price.

The girl’s greedy mother gave him 180,000 yuan but refused to return the full amount because the man lied about his age. 

But the man’s family remained adamant and demanded the money. They blocked her shopfront with a car and played messages in a loop over a loudspeaker, demanding the bride’s price. 

Meanwhile, the teen’s mother, matchmaker and the man all blamed each other for Tongtong’s death.

The tragic story has sparked outrage on social media in China and ignited a debate about marriage and women’s rights. One user wrote on Weibo, ”This is such a horror story. The girl is a daughter, a wife-to-be, a good financial resource, but never herself.”

Forced marriages are common in China, especially in underdeveloped areas. In urban areas, unmarried women aged over 30 are usually stigmatised as ”leftover women” and face pressure from parents to get married. 

A popular travel influencer and YouTuber has been found dead at his home just hours after he was arrested as part of a child pornography probe in Argentina. According to the New York Post, Leonel Esteban Borroni’s body was found by a relative at his home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires on May 17. He was found hanging from a skylight with his hands and legs bound with plastic ties. Police suspect that he took his own life, but are awaiting autopsy results.

The travel influencer was known by his social media username “Un Leon Viajero” which means “A Lion Traveller” in English. He had 164,000 followers on Instagram where he posted photos of motorbike trips to places like Ecuador, Venezuela and French Guiana.

Notably, he had been arrested following the alleged discovery of child pornography on his electronic devices. He was released on bail just hours after appearing before a judge as part of an ongoing investigation into human trafficking and sexual abuse. 

The influencer is believed to have refused to answer questions about the child porn allegedly found.

The case came to light after the Argentinian authorities received a tip-off from a US-based agency specialising in combating child exploitation. Another five men and a woman, aged between 20 and 50, have also been implicated in the investigation.

His last post on Instagram was two weeks ago when he shared a picture of himself on the back of a motorbike and bid “goodbye” to some of his followers. He wrote, “What a beautiful moment I am living Laions, saying goodbye to some social media and entering others.”

He’d earlier posted: “In these eight years of touring places I never thought I would reach I achieved my travelling goal, I am happy for all that I could shoot, and above all for having health and support of the Laions, I hope the universe helps me to enjoy it all I walked from another place with more comfort, I deserve it. Thank you.”

John Barnett, a whistleblower who had raised concerns about safety and production standards at Boeing, has died by suicide, the police said. 

The 62-year-old was found dead inside his truck on March 9, in South Carolina, US, reported CNN.

Initial investigations into his death were underway, but they have since been halted, the report added.

Mr Barnett was scheduled to testify against Boeing (an Aerospace company) in a legal case, alleging illegal retaliation by the company, the report mentioned.

However, when he failed to show up at a court deposition, police officers conducted a welfare check and found his body on the driver’s seat of the truck. The gunshot wound to the head indicated that Mr Barnett died by suicide, the report said.

People, investigating the crime scene, found a gun in Mr Barnett’s right hand. They also spotted gunshot residue on his hand and a  single shell casing inside the truck, the report mentioned.

Further examination revealed a single shell casing inside the truck and a suicide note left on the passenger seat. These findings confirmed Mr Barnett’s death as a suicide. 

A report from the Charleston County Coroner stated that “all findings were consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound” with the coroner concluding that the manner of death is “best deemed as suicide.” 

There was reportedly also a suicide note which had his fingerprints. The note read, “I can’t do this any longer. Enough. F*** Boeing. I found my purpose. I am at peace” adding an “I love you all” to his friends and family, as per the NY Post.

The police revealed that he was alone and locked inside his vehicle when they found him. CCTV footage from the hotel showed him leaving alone and reversing into a parking spot a few minutes later. No one was seen approaching or leaving the truck until the grim discovery the following morning. Investigations into his phone records also did not reveal any signs of unusual travel patterns or communications.

John Barnett worked at Boeing for more than 30 years, retiring in 2017 as a quality control engineer. He spoke out to the BBC in 2019, stating worries about Boeing rushing the production of its 787 Dreamliner jets, which he believed was risking safety. Mr Barnett then sued Boeing, claiming they had spied on him, retaliated against him and harassed him. 

Mr Barnett’s lawyers said, “We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it.”

Nashik, Maharashtra:

A 30-year-old woman died by suicide in Maharashtra’s Nashik city on Wednesday, while her two children were found dead in her home, an official said.

Police suspect Ashwini Nikumbh, who left behind a video message blaming her husband, poisoned her children Aaradhya (8) and Agastya (2) before taking her life.

Around 7 am, Ashwini jumped from the terrace of Hari Vandan Apartment in the Konark Nagar area of the city.

After being alerted by other residents, the police reached the spot and found her two children dead in her home. Her husband was out of the station at the time.

The police have recovered a hand-written note, purportedly written by Ashwini, blaming her husband Swapnil for torturing her. Before killing herself, she also recorded a video message accusing Swapni of pushing her to take the extreme step and shared the clip with their relatives, an official said.

Swapnil, who was in Pune for work, has been called to join the probe, the official said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In a tragic incident, a 32-year-old woman named Savannah Kriger from Texas instructed her 3-year-old son to bid farewell to his father while filming him shortly before she shot the child and then herself, according to The New York Post. The devastating event took place on March 19 at a park in San Antonio. Kriger and her son, Kaiden, were discovered dead with gunshot wounds to their heads.

Authorities have been investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder-suicide for several weeks. Prior to the incident, Kriger engaged in disturbing behaviour, including shooting at her wedding photos, vandalising her ex-husband’s residence, and sending him threatening FaceTime videos and texts.

According to The NY Post, the sequence of events began when Kriger left work on the afternoon of March 18 and proceeded directly to her ex-husband’s home while he was away at work. Following the damage inflicted at her ex-husband’s residence, Kriger returned to her own home, where investigators later found her wedding attire and portraits arranged on the bed. According to Sheriff Javier Salazar of the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, it is believed that Kriger discharged two rounds into her wedding portraits.

“You don’t have anything to go home to now. You really don’t,” Kriger said on one FaceTime call. “You won’t have anything at all at the end of the day.”

The final text to her ex read, “Say goodbye to your son.”

A 21-second video recovered from her phone showed Kriger and her son sitting in the ditch in the park, where their bodies would later be discovered.

New Delhi:

A 25-year-old man was found hanging from the ceiling of a hotel room in central Delhi’s Paharganj Thursday morning, police said.

The body was found in PK Hotel, said police, which suspect it be a case of suicide as the room was shut from inside.

No suicide note was recovered from the body, an officer said.

According to police, the person was identified as Mohammad Qasim, who lived with his family in east Delhi’s Indira Vihar area.

Qasim’s father works in a plastic pipe manufacturing factory, they said.

The officer said Qasim had on Wednesday told his family that he was going to meet his friend but reached the hotel.

He stayed in the room and asked the staff to wake him up at 6 am.

When the staff came to wake him up next morning, there was no response from inside, the officer said.

They then informed police and the fire department, who broke open the door and found Qasim hanging. The matter is being investigated.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Lahore:

A 12-year-old boy allegedly ended his life in Raiwind city here after his mother refused to give him a mobile phone, ARY News reported citing police officials.

According to Lahore police, Ayyan pleaded with his mother for the phone, but she declined and left for a neighbour’s house.

Upon her return, she discovered her son’s lifeless body hanging from the ceiling. It appeared that the boy had used a rope tied to a bamboo pole on the wall to take his own life, as reported by ARY News.

Meanwhile, police have launched an investigation into the incident and are gathering evidence from the scene.

This tragic incident follows another recent suicide case in Mughalpura, Lahore, where a 33-year-old female doctor, Bushra Suhail, reportedly took her life following a heated argument with her mother on March 27.

According to her sister Rabia, Bushra locked herself in her room after the argument, and later she was found hanging from a ceiling fan, ARY News reported.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The human mind is an enigma and there can be myriad reasons for a man or a woman to die by suicide, the Supreme Court has said while acquitting a man charged with abetting the death by suicide of his landlady 24 years ago.

A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Ujjal Bhuyan said it may not always be the case that someone has to abet the commission of suicide, and the circumstances surrounding the person are relevant.

“The human mind is an enigma. It is well nigh impossible to unravel the mystery of the human mind. There can be myriad reasons for a man or a woman to commit or attempt to commit suicide: it may be a case of failure to achieve academic excellence, oppressive environment in college or hostel, particularly for students belonging to the marginalised sections, joblessness, financial difficulties, disappointment in love or marriage, acute or chronic ailments, depression, so on and so forth,” the bench said.

In this case, the man, a former tenant, proposed to his landlady, who was returning after dropping her sister’s children off at school.

The man threatened her that if she did not agree to marry him, he would destroy the families of her sisters, outrage their modesty and kill them.

After she reached home, the woman informed her sisters about the incident over the phone. Thereafter, she consumed poison in the house. She was rushed to hospital where she died on July 6, 2000.

The top court said there was no evidence on the basis of which it could hold the appellant guilty of abetting the suicide.

“While the death of a young woman is certainly very tragic, it cannot be said with any degree of certainty that suicide has been proved; the other essential ingredient constituting the offence under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) of IPC, viz, abetment cannot also be said to have been proved,” the bench said.

The court said on a conjoint reading of the entire material on record, it was of the opinion that the prosecution had failed to prove the charge of abetment to suicide against the appellant.

“The settled legal position, the evidence on record and the glaring omissions of the prosecution as pointed out above, leaves no room for doubt. We are therefore of the unhesitant view that the conviction of the appellant is wholly unsustainable,” the bench said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Two bodies, including of a woman were found inside a hotel room near Maujpur Metro Station under Jafrabad Police Station limits in the National Capital, police said late Friday.

Police claimed they also found a “suicide note” on the spot.

“Sohrab was found hanging from the ceiling fan with a nylon rope. Ayesha was found lying dead on the bed. There are some ligature marks on her neck,” said DCP (North East) Joy Tirkey.

DCP Tirkey further claimed that a half-page handwritten (in Hindi) “suicide note” was found lying on the bed next to Ayesha.

“It appears that both were in love and had decided to end their lives together,” DCP Tirkey said.

Police said they received a call about the incident on Friday at 8: 05 pm.

The deceased has been identified as Sohrab (28), a resident of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh and Ayesha (27), a resident of Loni, UP. She is survived by a 9-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl. Mohd Gulfam (28), the husband of the deceased woman sells gym protein supplements.

During the inquiry, police said it came to light that Sohrab and Ayesha had checked in at a hotel at 1:02 pm and “had booked the room for 4 hours”.

“When they did not come out, the hotel staff knocked on the door at about 7:45 pm. There was no response so they called the Beat Constable. The room was opened in the presence of the police,” the official said.

The Crime Team and FSL Team have reached the spot to collect the evidence. CCTV footage of the reception and staircase is being examined. Ayesha’s husband is being examined, as per police.

“Further action will be taken after the post-mortem examination on Saturday,” he said, adding that efforts are being made to get in touch with the family members of Sohrab (deceased).

“Further investigation is in progress,” the official said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

 A 55-year-old Delhi police official, Anil Sisodiya died after he allegedly shot himself at his residence in South-East Delhi, said the police on Wednesday.

The incident took place in the Jangpura area of South East Delhi, the police added.

Anil Sisodiya was posted as Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) in the South-West zone of Delhi.

“A 55-year-old ACP of Delhi Police, identified as Anil Sisodia, allegedly died by suicide by shooting himself at his residence in Jangpura. His wife passed away three days back”, the Delhi police said.

Meanwhile, a probe is underway into the matter, it added.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)