“It would have been better if I had died,” rued Manoj Singh (name changed) expressing regret over surviving the suicide pact with a minor due to her family’s objection to their meetings.
The 22-year-old man lost his legs while the girl, said to be around 10-year-old, fractured her limbs after they were run over by a train in Narela on Monday.
Both Manoj and the girl claim the other person encouraged them to participate in the suicide pact.
Minor alleges torture
However, the minor alleged that her mother and sister tortured her and forced her to stay away from Manoj. She claimed her sister was not at home when he came over and said “let’s go and die”.
Manoj claimed helplessness saying the minor had threatened to commit suicide if he did not marry her. According to the police, the girl’s statement or consent has no legal or evidential value given her age and that the onus was on the man to explain how they ended up being run over by a train at the same time.
Claiming he had nowhere to go, Manoj said he worked with a company that supplies modular kitchen accessories for households.
The girl’s parents work in a factory in Narela industrial area. The girl’s family and Manoj both hail from Bihar’s Madhubani.
The man and the minor, who live in the same building, allegedly knew each other for the past two years.
Her family wanted Manoj, who is a tenant in the building, evicted. Her family allegedly told her that she would be married off after a certain age.
Day of incident
On the day of the incident, the girl’s sister had gone to the market while her mother was on the terrace.
The girl and Manoj left her house hand in hand. Her mother spotted them walking away after they had covered a fair distance and screamed at them to stop. Manoj said they ignored her mother, who did not chase them either, and kept walking.