Parents end life in hospital after son dies

TIRUPUR: A day after a 22-yearold student died in a bike accident, his grief-stricken parents committed suicide by consuming poison at

Avinashi Government Hospital

, where the victim’s body was kept, in Tirupur on Tuesday.


S Nishanth of Namakkal was returning from Coimbatore on his bike on Monday night when he smashed into a stationary mini-truck near Avinashi. Nishant and his relative V

Kribhakaran

, died on the spot. His parents Sakthivel, 54, and Sudha, 48, who rushed to Avinashi Government Hospital where the bodies were kept, consumed fruit juice laced with pesticide in the wee hours of Tuesday.

Police said Nishanth of Ekkattur near

Kumaramangalam

in Namakkal district had visited Coimbatore passport office in the morning along with Kribhakaran, 21, from Pykara in

Udhagamandalam

and was returning home in the evening when the accident happened. Nishanth was driving the motorcycle. When they reached a flyover at

Attayampalayam

near Avinashi, he rode straight into a stationary mini-truck. “The mini-truck was loaded with a paper cup making machine. The machine slipped and fell from the vehicle. The driver had stopped the vehicle and was mounting the machine with the help of a passerby when the incident took place,’’ a police officer said.

Nishanth had apparently failed to anticipate a vehicle stationed atop the flyover and could not bring the bike to a halt. “Nishanth and Kribhakaran were flung off the bike in the impact. They also hit a man named Ganesan of Pudukottai, an auto driver, who was helping the mini-truck driver load the machine on the vehicle,’’ a police officer said. In the impact, Nishanth and Kribhakaran suffered severe injuries on their head while Ganesan had his leg fractured.

Passersby rushed the three to Avinashi Government Hospital but Nishanth and Kribhakaran were declared brought dead. Nishanth’s parents visited the hospital in the night. They were inconsolable since their arrivel at the hospital and were constantly crying, police said.

Unable to bear the grief, they mixed pesticide with fruit juice and consumed it. “Their relatives, who had accompanied them to the hospital, rushed them to a private hospital. But Sakthivel died around midnight and Sudha died a few hours later,’’ police said.