Suicide pact: Wife succeeds, husband gets cold feet

Ghaziabad: A debt-ridden elderly couple from Ghaziabad decided to end their lives after they received notice to face trial in a Rs 12 lakh cheque bounce case registered against them at a police station in Delhi.

Police said that the 55-year-old woman allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself with the ceiling fan inside her apartment in Crossing Republic area on Tuesday and poisoned their Labrador breed pet dog as well, which was also found dead inside the apartment. The husband identified as Madhusudan Siddhanti (60) went to railway crossing to commit suicide but could not gather the courage and came back to police station on Wednesday where he told the ordeal to police.

According to police, Siddhanti, a native of Karnataka, worked as a drafting expert with an advertisement agency. Few years back he issued a cheque of Rs 12 lakh in the name of a private company for advertisement which got bounced and the company registered a case against him. He got a notice to present before the Rohini court on February 20 to face trials. Under the fear of getting booked in the court, the couple decided to end their lives.

On Tuesday evening before the couple decided to commit the suicide they wrote on the wall of their apartment and held the owner of private company, Madhur Jain, responsible for their death, said police.

"Siddhanti came to police station on Wednesday afternoon and told police about the incident after which police team along with officials of forensic department rushed to the spot to collect samples. The body of the deceased woman has been sent for the postmortem and the husband is being interrogated. The actual reason can only be ascertained after the autopsy reports are out to us," said H N Singh, senior superintendent of police, Ghaziabad.