A middle-aged housewife and her young daughter attempted to hang themselves from the ceiling of their home at Halsha village in Sadar upazila on Wednesday.

Daughter Munni, 20, died instantly but her mother Jaheda Begum, 40, is now fighting for life at Rajshahi Medical College and Hospital (RMCH).

Police said they took the extreme decision to kill themselves as Jaheda’s husband, Khorshed Alam, a former Union Parishad member, got married secretly for the second time.

After learning about it around 12 pm, both Jaheda and Munni took some sleeping pills and then tried to hang themselves from the ceiling of their home.

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Sensing that something was going wrong, their neighbours rushed to their home and took them to Natore Sadar Hospital where doctors declared Munni dead and transferred Jaheda to the RMC in critical condition, said Munsur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Sadar police station.

He said police have launched an investigation in this regard.