'Ditched' by Facebook lover, 14-year-old girl hangs self

November 7, 2013

Girl_hangs_self

Bangalore, Nov 7: “Ditched” by her Facebook lover who befriended her just one-and-a-half-months ago, a teenage girl reportedly hanged herself at her home in Mahalakshmi Layout here on Tuesday evening. Police have arrested the man for abetment to suicide and rape.

Manoj Kumar, 22, a BCom student from Nandini Layout, was arrested after he was named in a three-and-a-half-page handwritten suicide letter reportedly left behind by the 14-year-old victim.

Hours before the reported suicide, the girl and her younger brother visited a relative near their house. At 3.15 pm, she left him there and returned home.

Their parents were away at the time. When her mother returned home in the evening, she found her hanging with a dupatta from the ceiling fan in her bedroom.

The door had been first locked. Her mother then called her, knocking on the door. But when the girl did not respond, she called up her husband who rushed home and broke the door open, only to find their daughter dead, police said.

Giving the reasons for her extreme step, the girl, who was a class 9 student, said she was “dejected” as Kumar had “ditched” her. The two struck up a friendship after she accepted a Facebook friend request sent by Kumar on September 18. She had joined Facebook on October 29, 2012.

They then began courting each other. On October 4, Kumar called her to his house, an invitation she promptly accepted. When she went to the house, Kumar was alone there. He then “forced” her into physical relationship, police quoted the girl as having written in the letter.

Harassment

The girl claimed the suspect “harassed” her for the phone numbers of her female friends, saying he wanted to talk to them.

For the last two weeks, however, he began “avoiding” her. When she asked him to marry her, he “ditched” her, saying the physical relationship was “just for fun”.

He also told her that he would only marry the girl his parents would choose. Thereafter, Kumar “completely blanked her out” and did not respond to any of her messages, the girl further said, adding that the “humiliation” was too great for to her tolerate.

Police sources said the girl did not have a computer at home or a personal mobile phone. According to her parents, she might have visited Facebook at a cyber cafe.

Initial investigation revealed that the mother had noticed her daughter calling the suspect from her mobile phone a few times. Even she called him sometime ago and warned him against “harassing” her daughter.

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News Network
December 7,2025

SHRIMP.jpg

Mangaluru, Dec 7: A rare bamboo shrimp has been rediscovered on mainland India more than 70 years after it was last reported, confirming for the first time the presence of Atyopsis spinipes in the country. The find was made by researchers from the Centre for Climate Change Studies at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, during surveys in Karnataka and Odisha.

The team — shrimp expert Dr S Prakash, PhD scholar K Kunjulakshmi, and Mangaluru-based researcher Maclean Antony Santos — combined field surveys, ecological assessments and DNA analysis to identify the elusive species. Their findings, published in Zootaxa, resolve decades of taxonomic confusion stemming from a 1951 report that misidentified the species as Atyopsis moluccensis without strong evidence.

The shrimp has now been confirmed at two locations: the Mulki–Pavanje estuary near Mangaluru and the Kuakhai River in Bhubaneswar. Historical specimens from the Andaman Islands, previously labelled as A. moluccensis, were also found to be misidentified and actually belong to A. spinipes.

The rediscovery began after an aquarium hobbyist in Odisha spotted a shrimp in 2022, prompting systematic surveys across Udupi, Karwar and Mangaluru. Four female specimens were collected in Mulki and one in Odisha, all genetically matching.

Researchers warn the species may exist in very small, vulnerable populations as freshwater habitats face increasing pressure from pollution, sand mining and infrastructure development. All verified specimens have been deposited with the Zoological Survey of India for future reference.

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