One arrested for allegedly abetting salon manager’s suicide

Lucknow: Two days after a 32-year-old salon manager was found dead inside her apartment in Lucknow’s Gomtinagar extension area, police on Thursday arrested one of the accused named by the woman and her family in connection with the alleged abetment to suicide case.

“The arrested accused has been identified as Mangalnath Yadav, 31, a native of Deoria district. He was arrested near Gwari Pul in Sector-1 of Gomtinagar extension on Thursday and later produced before a court,” said SHO Gomtinagar extension, Sudheer Awasthi.

The woman, who worked as a manager at a premium salon in the city, was found hanging inside her eighth-floor flat at Shalimar One World late on Tuesday night after police broke open the apartment door when repeated attempts to contact her failed.

Minutes before the incident, she had uploaded a video on social media in which she was seen crying and alleging mental harassment by her employer and colleagues, holding them responsible for her “suicide”. She had also reportedly informed one of her friends over phone before taking the extreme step, following which police were alerted.

In the viral video, the woman named five people — salon owner Sharad Singh, Pallavi Joshi, Vaishali, Mangal Yadav and Prashant Sharma — alleging harassment by them.

Following a complaint lodged by the woman’s father, Sudhir Kumar Singh, a resident of Gorakhpur, Gomtinagar extension police registered an FIR under Section 108 (abetment to suicide) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against the five named accused and some unidentified persons.

According to police, the complainant alleged that his daughter was subjected to continuous mental and physical harassment, which drove her to die by suicide.

“Further investigation and evidence collection are underway. Efforts are being made to trace the remaining accused,” police said.

Earlier, police had said that the woman was living alone in the apartment while working at the salon owned by Sharad Singh in the Gomtinagar extension area. Her body was sent for postmortem examination and her mobile phone was seized for forensic analysis.

Police records show that Yadav has two previous criminal cases registered against him — one in Lucknow’s Ghazipur police station in 2018 and another in Deoria district in 2020.