Chennai: Jilted lover beats college mate to death with wooden log

Karur: In a shocking incident, a 20-year old engineering student was allegedly bludgeoned to death in her classroom in a private college near here on Tuesday by her senior for spurning his love.

The incident comes just two months after a similar brutal killing of woman techie Swathi at a railway station in Chennai for rejecting love of a man.

K. Sonali, doing third-year BE (civil), was allegedly hit repeatedly on head with a log of wood by P Udayakumar even as her classmates looked on in shock. When some of them tried to intervene, the assailant hit them too and later fled.

She bled profusely and was rushed to a private hospital in Madurai, about 140 km from here, where she succumbed without responding to treatment, police said.

The assailant was one year senior to the victim in the college. A native of Paramakudi in Ramanathapuram District, had dropped out of the institution last year.

Udayakumar tried speaking to her in the canteen in the morning but she spurned him, after which he followed her to the class, police said.

He was arrested soon after the incident and a case of murder slapped against him. The college management has declared holiday for three days from today.

Swathi, employed with an IT firm, was hacked to death allegedly by a man in the Nungambakkam railway station in Chennai on July 24 in full public view in the morning. After a man-hunt, police arrested Ramkumar on the charge of killing her.