Mumbai: Teen kills self, says her farmer father won't be able to pay for dowry, in suicide note

Mumbai: A 17-year-old girl committed suicide in Nanded district of Maharashtra, saying that her father, a farmer, would not be in the position to pay dowry for her marriage, police said on Thursday.

Pooja Vikas Shirgire, a class 12th student, consumed poison at her rented room at Bisi village near Nanded town Wednesday afternoon.

A student of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule junior college in Nanded, she was staying with her brother, a police official said.

Her suicide note said she was worried about her marriage because of her farmer father's poor financial condition. Terming herself a victim of the dowry custom, she asked her father to forgive her.

Her brother was at college when she drank some poisonous substance on Wednesday afternoon, police said. When the owner of the house, Sultan Imam (55), knocked on the door of her room, Pooja managed to open the door and collapsed.

Imam and some neighbours took her to a nearby hospital but she was declared dead before admission.

"We will verify the reason for the suicide by speaking to her father and other family members," said inspector Arun Jagtap of Kinvat tehsil police station. Police will also probe if her father was debt-ridden, he said.

Similar incidents -- girls from farmer families ending life because of worries about dowry -- have been reported from the Marathwada region earlier too.