Elderly woman dies after clothes catch fire during puja

Chennai: A 68-year-old woman died on Friday after her clothes caught fire during a puja at her home in Puzhal, the police said.

The woman, Senbhagavalli, lived alone in Mariamman Nagar in Kavangarai, near Puzhal. Her son, who works in Dubai, and her daughter, who lives in Tiruvallur, regularly checked on her through video calls and surveillance cameras installed at the house, the police said.

On Friday, her son noticed smoke spreading inside the house through the camera feed and alerted neighbors, asking them to check on her. They rushed to the house, broke open the door and found Senbhagavalli unconscious with burn injuries, the police said. Investigators suspect that her clothes caught fire from camphor lit during the puja.

She was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared her dead. The body was sent to Government Stanley Medical College Hospital for postmortem. Police have registered a case and are investigating.

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