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Odisha teenager dies days after setting herself afire over stalker’s harassment
Doctors at the Rourkela hospital, where she was admitted on Saturday, said the 18-year-old suffered multiple organ failures triggered by the burn injuries
A teenager, who set herself on fire in Odisha’s Sundargarh district over alleged harassment from a 24-year-old stalker and suffered 92% burn injuries on late Friday, succumbed to her injuries on early Monday.
Doctors at the Rourkela hospital, where she was admitted on Saturday, said the 18-year-old suffered multiple organ failures triggered by the burn injuries. The woman, a tribal, was a student at a Rajgangpur college.
Sundargarh Police superintendent Amritpal Kaur said the woman set herself afire late Friday at her home after speaking to a male friend.
Police cited a preliminary probe and said the 24-year-old, a porter, had harassed the teenager again in a passenger bus shortly before she set herself afire. “The accused had been stalking and harassing her for the last two years, but the harassment had worsened,” said Kaur.
The teenager’s mother said her daughter set herself afire when the rest of the family was sleeping. “When we woke up to her screams, we found her in flames and rushed her to the hospital,” she said.
On Sunday, state health minister Mukesh Mahaling said the state government would try to airlift her to Bhubaneswar or Delhi once her condition improved.
In July, a 20-year-old student at a Balasore college died two days after she set herself on fire on campus over inaction on her sexual harassment complaint against a head of a department. A 15-year-old girl in Puri set herself afire and died on August 2 at a Delhi hospital. Police concluded it was a case of suicide driven by mental stress.
On August 6, a 19-year-old college student in Kendrapara immolated herself after her ex-boyfriend threatened to leak intimate photos online. A 35-year-old woman in Dhenkanal sustained over 50% burn injuries after attempting self-immolation on August 10 over her family’s struggle to repay loans.
