Pregnant woman in alleged suicide

TANGERANG (JP): A pregnant woman burned herself to death in a locked bedroom here late on Thursday, leaving a letter for her husband, saying she could no longer bear seeing him frequently beat up her two children.

Tangerang subprecinct police chief Insp. Sumanto said the victim was Aminah binti Amir, 26, who lived at Jl. Veteran No. 7, in the Babakan subdistrict of Tangerang.

Sumanto said Aminah's motive for committing suicide was revealed in a letter she had written before the suicide to her husband Ferry Gunawan, alias Aseng.

Sumanto said Aseng was a thug who extorted money daily from public transportation minivans at Anyer market in Tangerang and spent most of the money collected on alcohol and marijuana.

However, Sumanto said police could not assume that the letter had really been written by Aminah as rumors had developed in the neighborhood that she had been burnt by her husband, who was known by neighbors to be violent.

"Neighbors suspected that Aseng had burned alive his pregnant wife," he said, adding that beforehand, Aminah had taken her two children, 8-year-old Windi and 5-year-old Arie, to their grandmother's house in Kebon Nanas, Tangerang. (41)