CHENNAI: Priya (name changed) did not think the self-defence lessons she had been taking at school, would come handy this soon. The 13-year-old was attacked by a stalker inside her apartment complex on Wednesday. He slit her throat, allegedly because she turned down his proposal. What made matters worse was that the stalker, Nitya alias Nityananthan (26), was her neighbour. Priya was discharged from the hospital on Thursday. Speaking to TNIE, sitting at her one-room home in Aminjikarai with a heavy bandage around her neck, the teenager started narrating a long chain of events that culminated in the attack – the ordeal that she had to go through for the last one year.

It all began in February 2019, when Nitya, who lived on the first floor, proposed his love to Priya. “We were neighbours for six years. I grew up playing with him. He would buy me chocolates... He was like a brother to me,” says Priya. “Things started to change last year. He started restricting me from talking to other boys in the neighbourhood. I did not understand his intentions at first,” she said. Soon, Priya says, Nitya proposed. “It upset me, so I stopped talking to him,” she said. But, Nitya refused to take no for an answer. He followed her to school, persuading her to talk. “He would lurk around my school. Whenever my mother asked me to run down to the store, he would be near the stairs. Slowly, persuasion turned into threats,” she said.

Once, Priya claims, Nitya tried putting a mobile phone secretly into her bag. “I made sure I broke it. I even alerted my mother about it,” said Priya. Her mother spoke to Nitya’s parents, to ensure he does not disturb her daughter. She did not approach the police, fearing repercussions on Priya’s life. But that did not make a difference. The ordeal kept getting worse. Every time Priya had to step out of her house, she had to use the stairwell, where she knew Nitya would be waiting for her. ‘The menacing looks and threats’ kept making her uncomfortable. A month ago, Nitya cornered Priya one evening, when she went to the store. 

“He blocked my way, forced me to talk... When I refused, he slit his wrist with a blade,” she recalled with a shudder. The next big episode happened on Wednesday. There was no talking this time.“I was returning home at around 12.30 pm. While crossing the first floor Nitya suddenly emerged out of the common bathroom. He lifted me over his shoulders,” she recalled.

“I think he wanted to take me to his room. I screamed and started hitting him. He dropped me on the stairs. He tried to pull me by my hand, but I held on to the railing. To stop me from screaming, he shut my mouth. Then, he pulled out a penknife and slit my throat. He tried to slit a second time, but I managed to push him off and scream again,” she recalled.

The neighbours rushed to Priya’s side, but Nitya managed to flee from the spot. Speaking to TNIE on Thursday, Priya’s mother said she was glad that her daughter had taken defense lessons. “That’s what saved her,” she said. Nitya, who works as a food delivery executive, has now been arrested by the police.