Supervisor held for abetting staffs suicide

CHENNAI: A private company supervisor was arrested on charges of abetment to suicide after an employee working under him committed self-immolation at Besant Nagar on December 2.Narayanan (35), a resident of Olcott Kuppam, worked as machine operator in a private company in SRP Tools area at Taramani. On the morning of December 2, his wife Uma (30) left home to drop their two children in a local school, when he doused his body with kerosene and set himself afire. Admitted in government hospital at Royapettah with 90 per cent burns, he later succumbed to his injuries.In his dying declaration, recorded by Shastri Nagar inspector Palaniselvam, Narayanan said he resorted to the extreme step because his supervisor Venkatraman (38) constantly passed teasing remarks, linking him with a former woman employee. “The woman staff had quit the company a year ago and the supervisor appeared to have teased the victim about it,” the inspector told Express.Venkatraman was booked under Section 306 (abetment to suicide) of IPC and produced before a Saidapet court, which remanded him to judicial custody.