CHENNAI: A 39-year-old man did after setting himself on fire in the middle of the road at GST Road in Chennai last evening. He was said to have been depressed by chief minister J Jayalalithaa's current ill-health.
According to police sources, R Sargunam, until recently employed as a security guard, set himself on fire at around 6.15 pm just opposite the MEPZ industrial estate next to Tambaram. Local people doused the fire and rushed him to the Chrompet government hospital. He was later shifted to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital, where he succumbed to the nearly 60 per cent burn injuries he had suffered.
In his testimony before dying, he reportedly told police that he had been upset over the ill-health of J Jayalalithaa and decided to commit suicide. Sargunam was the father of a four-year-old girl and had been unemployed in the past few months after he quit the security guard’s job. Police sources said he was not a member of Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK party.