Thief attempts suicide after bid to escape fails

A thief allegedly attempted suicide as he could not escape from the house he had sneaked into to steal valuables in HAL on Wednesday.

Swastik (27), a resident of Vibhuthipura and a daily wager, has been shifted to the Victoria Hospital with 20% burns. Mohan K M (40), the owner of the house and a contractor, has filed a complaint with the police.

On Wednesday, when Mohan’s wife was cleaning the front yard of the house at 6.30 am, Swastik silently sneaked into the house without being noticed by the family. At 8.40 am, Mohan along with his wife and two children left home to visit a temple.

When they returned at 10.15 am, they noticed a blaze from their house.

They managed to put off the fire, but to their shock, they also found an unknown person near the kitchen balcony with burns.

Mohan alerted the police and shifted him to a hospital.

Swastik later confessed to the police that he had entered the house in the morning to steal. But after he was done with his job, he could not escape as the family had gone out locking the house.

With no way to escape and fearing being caught, he attempted to kill himself by hanging from the ceiling fan. When this failed, he set himself ablaze by disconnecting the cylinder pipe.

The police are carrying out further investigations.