Overview
- Neighbors reported smoke around 10:30 pm on January 3 at a building on First Main Road in Subramanya Layout, Ramamurthy Nagar.
- Owner Vijayendra alerted authorities, and firefighters forced open the apartment door, which was locked from the inside, before extinguishing the blaze.
- Responders found 34-year-old Sharmila Kushalappa unconscious near the kitchen and doctors declared her dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.
- A Forensic Science Laboratory team inspected the scene, and investigators say suffocation from smoke is the suspected cause of death.
- Police registered an unnatural-death case and are working to determine how the fire started; Sharmila, an Accenture employee from Mangaluru, had been living alone.