A 23-year-old woman has committed suicide by consuming poison in front of a temple after her lover refused to marry her.

The woman, Nivedha, was an employee of a private firm. For about a year, she was in love with Mahesh, a taxi driver and a native of her village, Alandurai. The two were physically intimate with each other, following the assurance and promise that Mahesh would marry her.

But Mahesh gradually stopped meeting her or speaking to her over the phone. He also refused to marry her. Dejected over the rejection, Nivedha came to the Perur Pattershwarar temple and consumed cow dung powder after calling her former lover over the phone and informing him. She collapsed soon after, near the temple entrance.

Terrified, Mahesh informed a friend who lived nearby, who rushed her to a hospital in Thondamuthur. Nivedha was then taken to the Government Hospital, but she had died before then.

The police have arrested Mahesh based on the complaint from Nivedha’s parents. Investigations have revealed that Mahesh had cheated three other girls before her.