Tamil Nadu: Man, wife commit suicide with 11-year-old son for failing to pay school fees

A couple and their 11-year-old son committed suicide in the Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu for reportedly failing to pay the child’s school fee. Thirty-five-year-old Senthilkumar, his 30-year-old wife and minor son committed Senthilkumar, a goldsmith by profession, had been struggling to acquire loans from multiple sources in order to be able to pay his son’s school fee. However, all of his efforts went in vain.

A relative of the family said that Senthilkumar was dejected after failing to get the loan to pay his son’s school fees. According to media reports, the child, a student of class six at a private school in the city, was found wearing his favourite dress, his school uniform.

In a similar incident earlier this month, a man hanged his son and convinced his wife to take her own life as part of a ‘mass suicide’ pact in Bengaluru. A video of 48-year-old Suresh Baby tightening the noose around his 12-year-old son’s neck was in wide circulation on social media. The man was about to kill his daughter and then himself, however, the girl managed to run out of the house and was heard by neighbours who rescued her and stopped the father from taking his own life. Five people were later arrested by city police for abetting the suicide of the woman and child after it was discovered that the accused had been harassing the family over money owed to them, according to a Times Now report.