Woman jumps to death from flat, daughter badly burnt

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 3. A middle-aged woman, who suffered burns, jumped to death from her apartment in the fourth floor of a building and her daughter, Dr. Mamata, who also suffered extensive burns in the apartment was found struggling for her life by firemen who rushed to the Sai Sadan apartments in Kimti gardens on Sunday morning.

What added to the mystery was that Dr. Mamata, who sustained about 45 per cent burns, was in the bedroom which was locked from outside, while the apartment's main door was locked from inside. Firemen had to break the main doors to enter the house and rescue Dr. Mamata. The injured woman has been shifted to the Gandhi Hospital and was being treated for third degree burns.

According to the Osmania University police, the fire service was alerted after people in the locality saw smoke billowing out of the fourth floor apartment. Even before the fire tenders could rush there, the middle-aged woman, later identified as Achamamba (52), jumped to death. The firemen who broke the main doors found one of the bedrooms bolted from outside and when they opened it they found Dr. Mamata inside.

Till late in the evening, the police were waiting to record the statement of Dr. Mamata to get a cogent picture of what had happened. She had earlier given conflicting versions once claiming that her mother could have set her ablaze, while at another time maintaining that some outsiders could have done it. It was peculiar that while the main doors were bolted from inside, the bedroom door was bolted from outside, leading to the suspicion whether Achamamba attempted suicide and also set her daughter ablaze. The police found a two-litre kerosene can and preliminary investigations disclosed that it was Achamamba who brought the kerosene to the apartment. Dr. Mamata's husband, Mr. Venkateshwar Rao, a businessman, was not in the apartment.

Circumstantial evidence indicated that while Dr. Mamata slept in one of the three bedrooms, Achamamba slept in the hall on Saturday night. The Osmania University Inspector, J. Subbarami Reddy, is investigating the case.

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