The three jumped in front of a moving train at Telecom Layout near Jakkur in Byatarayanapura, police said.
It was their inability to repay a loan and cough up a dowry that caused a a widow to commit suicide along with her two children — both married.
The three jumped in front of a moving train at Telecom Layout near Jakkur in Byatarayanapura, police said.
The bodies of Lakshmamma, 40, her son, Gangaraju, 22, and daughter Sumitra, 19, were found on the railway track on Thursday morning. They were residents of Hedgenagar near Hebbal.
Sumitra, married a year ago to autorickshaw driver Jaga, had been pursuing II PUC from a government college. Sumitra and her mother had jointly written a suicide note. They stated that they had availed a loan of Rs1.5 lakh from private financiers to take a house on lease in February, 2010. They had also taken a loan of Rs55,000 from others. The money was given to their landlords, Padmavathi and Bhagyaraj.
“They did not return the money. I could repay only about Rs11,000 to a financier from Thanisandra out of the Rs55,000 I had availed. I had to mortgage my daughter-in-law’s gold to the financier to settle the loan,” the suicide note read.
Lakhsmamma also said that he daughter had faced harassment at the hands of her husband and his relatives.
“She was married a year ago and was harassed by her husband and parents-in-law. They demanded money and sent her back to our home three months ago. We are committing suicide as we have failed to repay the loan, and cannot pay the dowry,” the note added.
Gangaraju’s wife Nithya claimed that she had seen Sumitra writing the letter, with Lakshmamma dictating something, around 7 pm on Wednesday. “I didn’t think anything was amiss. I went to do the dishes. Half hour later Sumitra went out. Lakshmamma also left the home ten minutes later, saying she was going to meet neighbours,” Nithya said, adding that Gangaraju had left home in the morning, never to return.
Inspector Shankar Narayan of Byappanahalli railway police said the mother-daughter duo might have contacted Gangaraju over the phone.
Nithya said she searched the house as she waited for the others to return, and found the death note. “I informed some neighbours, and we searched in vain till 10.30 pm,” she said. On Thursday, around 10 am, a few residents of Telecom Layout found the bodies of the mother and two children.
Lakshmamma’s husband died a year ago. Gangaraju got his father’s job as a waterline man in Byatarayanapura. Manjunath, Lakshmamma’s brother, said the family was worried after Sumitra returned from her husband’s home three months ago.
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