Write Comment     |     E-Mail To a Friend     |     Facebook     |     Twitter     |     Print

CHENNAI: A 41-year-old driver slit the throat of his wife, a software engineer, in front of her office on Old Mahabalipuram Road on Friday evening and then stabbed himself in the throat as the woman’s shocked colleagues looked on.
 
Police rushed S Lavanya, 33, and her husband Srinivasan, 41, to a private hospital in Sholinganallur. Their condition is said to be critical.
 
An investigating officer said the couple had been living separately for the past five years. "Lavanya had applied for divorce recently and this apparently angered Srinivasan," he said.
 
Lavanya and Srinivasan eloped 10 years ago and asked the police commissioner’s office to help them get married because Lavanya’s father, a chartered accountant, opposed their relationship.
 
Srinivasan fell in love with Lavanya after accompanying her father’s client on frequent visits to the chartered accountant’s residence. They have a nine-year-old son who studies in a private school in Ashok Nagar.

The officer said Srinivasan did not earn enough to make ends meet, so Lavanya applied for a job. She joined software major Accenture two years after they got married. The couple had frequent quarrels after Lavanya started working.
 
Frustrated by Srinivasan’s behaviour, Lavanya left her husband and returned to her parents’ house in Ashok Nagar five years ago. "Lavanya’s parents said Srinivasan had been harassing her over the past year both at her office and in their residence," the officer said. "He was drunk whenever he met Lavanya and he would abuse her in public."
 
Unable to bear the ignominy, Lavanya lodged a complaint with the Ashok Nagar all-women police station on January 10. Police officers tried to counsel the couple but Lavanya rebuffed all attempts at mediation. She filed for divorce three months ago.
 
Lavanya’s father Srinivasan told investigators that his son-in-law recently visited his son at school and told him that his mother would soon be dead. Though the boy told his grandparents about his father’s threat, they did not take him seriously, the officer said.
 
"Srinivasan purchased a paper cutter on Friday and went to Lavanya’s office," the officer said. "He signed the visitor’s register at the entrance and waited for his wife to finish work."
 
When Lavanya stepped out of office at 5.30 pm, Srinivasan grabbed hold of her and slit her throat with the paper cutter. When one of Lavanya’s colleagues, Clement, who was exiting the building with her tried to intervene, Srinivasan slashed his hand with the paper cutter. He then stabbed himself in the throat.
 
Lavanya’s colleagues alerted the Semmenchery police, who took the couple to a private hospital in Sholinganallur.
 
The Semmenchery police have charged Srinivasan under Section 307 of the IPC (attempt to murder) and are investigating the case.