Teen commits suicide on being denied phone as her birthday gift

​Chennai: On Thursday night an 18-year-old college student, committed suicide by setting herself ablaze in her residence in GKM Colony, Kolathur, minutes after her birthday celebrations ended as her father did not gift her a cellphone.

Police said Malathi, the daughter of a mason, had cut a cake with relatives and friends. "Soon after her friends left, she asked her father if he had the cellphone that he had promised her as a birthday gift," a police officer said.

"The father tried to explain that he did not have enough money and said he would buy her a phone next month. She bolted herself in a room and set herself ablaze," he said. "Family members broke open the door and rushed her to Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital where she died of her injuries."

Malathi had been insisting her father to buy her a cellphone after seeing her friends post photographs and status messages on social media. She told him that she could exchange study material with classmates by the means of phone. But Malathi's father did not want her to use a phone, the officer said.