'Use old saree, not new, to hang yourself': Woman booked for abetting 21-year-old to die by suicide

Police have registered a case against a 21-year-old woman for allegedly abetting a youth's suicide here after coming across their WhatsApp chats in which she encouraged him to end his life, officials said on Wednesday.

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Sahil Sahdev Thakur, also aged 21, was found hanging at his home in Varchapada area at Sagav in Dombivli (East) on June 26, an official from Manpada police station said.

The man and the accused knew each other.

On the day of the incident, the man was alone at home as his parents had gone out of town for a religious pilgrimage.

After their return, his parents found him hanging at home and alerted the police, the official said.

Initially, reasons behind the suicide remained unclear.

However, the man's family later went through his mobile phone and found a series of WhatsApp chats with a woman, identified as "Babli", whose number was saved in the device.

A former office-bearer of a political party on Monday accompanied the man's family to the Manpada police station where they showed the chat records, which allegedly contained disturbing exchanges between the man and the woman, hailing from Pade village, in the hours before the suicide, the official said.

According to the police, between 2 am and 3.15 am on the night before his death, the man and the accused woman were engaged in an argument over phone.

In the messages, the woman allegedly told the man: "There is no one at home, hang yourself. Don't use a new saree, use an old one," the official said.

Senior Police Inspector Sandipan Shinde confirmed that the content of the chats was examined and found to be serious in nature.

"Based on the digital evidence provided and the family's formal complaint, we registered a case against the woman on Monday under section 108 (abetment of suicide) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita," the official said.

An investigation was under way to verify all aspects of the communication and the nature of the relationship between the deceased and the accused, the police said.