The 58-day-long resilience of the 19-year-old Kousalya, the surviving victim of the brutal Udumalpet honour killing incident, finally broke as she took the ultimate step of attempting to end her life by consuming cow dung powder at her late husband’s residence here on Wednesday.

Even as the doctors from the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) revealed that Kousalya’s condition was stable, her family members felt that the incident had shaken up the family, which was just limping back to normalcy.

Kousalya’s husband V. Shankar was killed by a gang hired by her father, on March 13. Kousalya survived the attack, but she chose to live with Shankar’s family in Udumalpet.

Kausalya and her in-laws were being given protection by a four-member police team after the family feared that they too would be attacked. But, according to V. Vigneshwaran, brother of the deceased Shankar, Kousalya had failed to attend the counselling sessions. He also blamed the district administration for not providing counselling at home for Kousalya.

“She would be normal sometimes, and would feel very low and suddenly start to cry. We told her to go for the counselling, but she missed the sessions for some reason or the other,” said Vigneshwaran.

But, her other relatives claim that she was destroyed, bit by bit, by the relatives and family members of her dead husband. “She could never forget him, and all the people around her constantly added to her miseries,” said the relative.

Unable to handle the pain and guilt, Kousalya, who had earlier talked about rebuilding her life, allegedly tried to kill herself by consuming cow dung powder in the middle of the night, on Wednesday. She was brought to the Udumalpet Government hospital only on Thursday after she confessed to the family members that she had attempted suicide.

Initial treatments were provided to her in Udumalpet, and she was later shifted to the CMCH by 12 pm on Thursday.

“She is stable now and will be discharged based on the speed of her recovery,” a CMCH spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, G. Ramakrishnan, one of the senior leaders of the People Welfare Front, visited her at the CMCH on Thursday, and said that the front will provide moral and financial support to her. “We will also formulate a new law and provide security to couples who are under the risk of becoming victims of honour killing,” he said.