Youth commits suicide, shows hanging on webcam

LIVE DEATH: Twenty-year old medical student V S Karthik was having relationship problems.

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Keywords: Kannur suicide, V S Karthik

Thiruvananthapuram: The death of 20-year-old V S Karthik is a horrifying and unprecedented incident in the history of the Internet.

Karthik, apparently distressed by a souring relation with his girlfriend, ended his life and he made sure that she was witness to it.

On Friday, while Karthik was chatting with his girlfriend in Delhi over the Internet from his hostel room, they apparently had a tiff. An already edgy Karthik keyed in the words, “I am going to commit suicide." His girlfriend panicked and sent out messages dissuading him, but to no avail.

Karthik apparently turned the webcam towards the ceiling fan, and with his helpless love watching, hanged himself with his last moments being relayed to her.

Karthik’s body was found on Saturday by his friends with the webcam still running.

College-mates say off late, Karthik had withdrawn into a shell.

“He was increasingly becoming an introvert. We knew that he had a relation and that there was something wrong as he was very tensed about it,” said a classmate. “We knew he had some problems like this earlier also. We knew he had such a tendency.”

This is a first of its kind incident for the police, who could also look into whether his suicide was abetted.

"The guy has webcasted everything and it has gone through the Net to the girl. There is a problem, that is, the abuse of Net. There's a section in criminal law called 306 of the Indian Penal Code that says about the abetment, whether there is any abetment from anybody in committing this. That has to be looked into. That computer has to be also checked,” said IG Cyber Crime and HQ, Loknath Behra.

“To my knowledge, it is the first time something of this sort has happened,” Behra admitted.

There is shock, disbelief and despair at Karthik's home. Sources say his parents were unhappy with his relation with the girl and wanted him to snap it, something Karthik could not gather himself to do.

His family conducted his last rites on Sunday.

With inputs from Radhakrishnan in Kannur