Fooled by fake jackpot online, man kills self

CHENNAI: A 22-year-old B.Tech graduate on Wednesday committed suicide at Mannivakkam near Vandalur after he lost Rs 60,000 in online gambling. Robin Surender, son of a railway police constable, killed himself after his father scolded him for squandering his hard-earned money.
According to police officials, Surender, who had finished his graduation a few months earlier, had been waiting for a job.Spending long hours before the computer at home, he took to online gambling. Two weeks earlier, he received an e-mail stating that he had won Rs 5 crore and he was to pay Rs 2.7 lakh to claim the prize money.' When he informed his father Gunasekaran, a railway police constable, about the jackpot,' Gunasekaran told him they could not afford such a large sum. Robin mailed back to the lottery organisers conveying his inability to pay Rs 2.7 lakh. A few days later, he got another mail saying that he need to pay only Rs 60,000 to claim the prize money.'
This time, Gunasekaran agreed to pay this amount and pawned the family's gold for Rs 30,000 and took another Rs 30,000 from his savings. They deposited Rs 60,000 into a private bank account mentioned in the email.
A week passed, but there was no word from the lottery organisers. When repeated emails did not yeild any reply, Gunasekaran on Tuesday night scolded Surender for having wasted the money. On Wednesday evening, when he was alone at home, Surender consumed rat poison. He soon went running out of the house in despair and his neighbours, noticing something abnormal about his condition, rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead-on-arrival.
Peerkankaranai police sent his body to Chrompet General Hospital for a post-mortem examination. A case has been registered under CrPC Section 174.