Woman hangs self in front of five-year-old son

After an altercation with her husband, a 23-year-old woman hanged herself from a ceiling fan and asked her five-year-old son, the witness to the act, to call up his father after her death, police said Saturday.

Roba, who hailed from West Bengal, committed suicide Friday night inside her flat in Nivedita Kunj area near R.K. Puram in south Delhi.

The woman, who was working as a domestic help at the residence of an army brigadier in Delhi, lived with her husband, Sonu, and two children aged one and five years.

Police, on the basis of an initial inquiry, said Roba had a fight with her husband Friday night before he left for work at a nearby petrol pump, where he was on night duty for the week.

Soon after that, the woman allegedly hanged herself, with her five-year-old son witness to the entire act. The child was also instructed to call his father once she was dead.

The matter was reported to police around 6.30 a.m. Saturday after Roba's husband reached home on getting information about his wife's death.

"It was the five-year-old child who narrated the entire incident to police and admitted to have seen his mother dying," a police official said.

"No suicide note was found from the victim's possession. Her husband is being interrogated," he said.

Sonu and Roba were married six years ago, when they both worked in a petrol pump in R.K. Puram.

"After marriage, Roba left her job but Sonu is still working at the same petrol pump. Later, she started working at the brigadier's residence as a domestic help," he said.