Tanuja Pathare loses life battle

PUNE, Feb 12: A day after she was made to swallow poison by the boy she had spurned, 16-year-old Tanuja Kashinath Pathare died at the Sas...

PUNE, Feb 12: A day after she was made to swallow poison by the boy she had spurned, 16-year-old Tanuja Kashinath Pathare died at the Sassoon hospital here.

Tanuja8217;s end came early Friday, sending shock waves across the city which has witnessed at least five such incidents in recent years.

Tanuja8217;s body was handed over to the family after a postmortem. Her last rites were performed in the afternoon with only a few relatives around to console the family.

Residents of Bopkhel, the village where the family resides, remained indifferent, most saying that the family8217;s misfortune was none of their concern as the Pathares were outsiders8217; in the village.

According to the autopsy report, Tanuja died because of the consumption of an unidentified venomous substance. Her viscera has been preserved. Police are awaiting word from laboratories where chemical analysis is underway.

Raju Awati, the 21-year-old who was arrested after Tanuja8217;s mother lodged a first information report FIR against him on Wednesday night, was today produced before Judicial Magistrate First Class C W Meshram.

The magistrate remanded him to four days police custody after assistant public prosecutor Swati Kulkarni submitted that the police were yet to find the substance used to kill Tanuja.

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Inspector Shyam Mohite, Bhosari police station in-charge, said that Raju maintained throughout the interrogation that he was in no way involved with Tanuja8217;s death. Mohite said they were looking into reports that some boys were witness to the incident because they happened to be playing on the road where Tanuja was attacked on her way home from school. Some labourers, who had been spotted digging a trench nearby, denied any knowledge of the incident, claiming they were not working there that day.

According to Tanuja8217;s father Kashinath, the family had no idea that Raju had a crush on Tanuja. 8220;How were we supposed to know? Being my nephew and our neighbour, Raju often visited our house,8221; sobbed the distraught father. Kashinath works with the sales tax department.

8220;She was my only daughter and the eldest child the two sons are younger to Tanuja. I would often tell her she should become someone big someday. She always said she would study hard to live up to our expectations8221;.

Tanuja8217;s classmates she was a class X student at Swami Vivekananda High School in Dapodi said she was a good student and had cleared the class VIII and IX examinations with distinction. Tanuja8217;s teachers, however, declined to speak about her, saying they needed school permission to do so.