17-Year-Old Girl 'Hounded' By Stalker Hangs Herself To Death After Birthday Lunch

A girl hanged herself to death a day after her 17th birthday. The teen's parents alleged their daughter was being "hounded" by a stalker for months.

The incident happened on Sunday, Aug. 8, in Gurugram city, Haryana, India.

According to the girl’s father, a teacher at a private school, the teen’s birthday was on Saturday. But as she was fasting on that day she asked her family to celebrate her birthday a day later.

On Sunday morning, the girl told her mother to prepare special lunch and also invited her cousins to join the celebration. The teen reportedly helped her mother with the cooking, cleaned the house, and also washed the clothes herself as the washing machine was snagging the clothes.

"Everyone was happy. It was a sort of small celebration," the girl’s father said.

Once the food was ready, the birthday girl served it to her younger siblings and cousins. When her mother asked her to grab a plate for herself, the teen said she would eat later.

"She went upstairs, saying she would hang the clothes to dry. Everything seemed so normal. We had no inkling what was going on in her mind," the father said.

When the teen was taking a bit longer than usual to return, her younger sister went upstairs to check on her and found her hanging from the ceiling fan, the Times of India reported.

"She did not reply to repeated knocks on the door. My younger daughter stood on a chair and looked through the ventilator. She saw her hanging from the ceiling fan," the father said.

The teen’s family has filed a police complaint alleging that a 23-year-old man called Rohit had been stalking their daughter for several months.

According to the complaint, the accused used to follow the teen and try talking to her. Since the teen showed no interest in the man, the accused accosted her in a market and threatened to abduct her and harm her sisters if she did not talk to him.

After that incident, the girl’s father had confronted the suspect and warned him to stay away from his daughter, however, it failed to deter him.

The teen’s father said they could sense their daughter was under some pressure, but they couldn’t figure out the actual reason as she would not share anything. "She had lost weight. Something was bothering her from inside," he said.

A case under Section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered against the accused at Pataudi police station.

"We are verifying the facts and trying to nab the accused. We will get more details only after his arrest," ACP (Pataudi) Veer Singh said.