Chennai: Neighbour suffers burns trying to stop perpetrator

Chennai: The tragic crime meted out to a young woman for saying ‘no’ to her friend would have snuffed out two more lives, had neighbours not reacted in time. In the process, a 29-year-old software engineer, Ramkumar living in the same apartment complex suffered burn injuries too.

Raghu, another neighbor,  rushed on hearing screams and helped move Indhuja’s mother Renuka and sister, Nivedha out of the house and to a nearby hospital. Ramkumar and Raghu’s instincts to react to screams from inside a neighbour’s apartment is more so important in urban spaces, where respecting the privacy of the neighbour is considered the norm.

“I initially thought it was a family feud,” recalls Ramkumar. When he climbed up the stairs, the door to the apartment was open and he saw another man (Akash), other than the family members. Akash had already poured petrol on the women and was threatening them.

Seeing him, Indhuja’s mother Renuka asked him to help send Akash outside. “By the time, I could grapple my head around what was happening and pacify him, he threw a lighter and set them on fire,” Ramkumar said.  He suffered burns on his hands and legs too.

 Hearing the screams, Raghu, another neighbour rushed to the apartment. “Seeing, the smoke, I initially thought it was a LPG accident, but soon realised what had happened,” Raghu said.

Raghu remembers Akash driving past them casually as they rushed towards the apartment. Renuka and Nivedha were in the hall and Raghu managed to shift them downstairs. Renuka then informed them about Indhuja who was locked inside the bedroom. “She was charred badly. The paramedics who reached the apartment declared that she was already dead,” recalls Raghu, who has been living there for more than a decade.

The injured family members have no idea that Indhuja had died. For the deceased girl’s father, Shanmugam, it is probably the longest flight he ever took, rued the neighbours.