A still from Sholay

Hyderabad, Sept. 30: Karimnagar turned Ramgarh and Abdul Rahim a valiant Veeru daring his lady-love to stop him from throwing himself to death. Everything in the real-life Sholay scene was played to script, but the denouement has left the industrial hub stunned.

Rahim jumped to death from a three-storey building, the fatal plunge fuelled by fears of a conviction in an attempt-to-murder case his estranged wife filed against him. The judgment was due on Monday.

The 38-year-old construction hand married Khatija Begum in 1999, but relations soured within six months. She burnt her hand while cooking, an unfortunate occurrence she reportedly used as a pretext to file a petition for damages before a family court.

Matters were resolved with the intervention of community heads and a compensation of Rs 1 lakh was awarded to her. Still unhappy, the couple swapped talaq vows and started living separately two years ago.

But Khatija, who has now remarried and has a child from her second husband, kept the case against Rahim alive. The family court dismissed her plea for a larger compensation, but the 29-year-old contested the order in Andhra Pradesh High Court.

On Wednesday, Rahim’s desperation peaked when his lawyer told him he would have to spend 14 years in prison under the attempt-to-murder charge Khatija slapped on him in addition to those concerning compensation. The way out, he was advised, was to get his ex-wife to drop the murder charge.

Driven to the wall, Rahim went up to the terrace of the building and, perched eerily on a ledge, started crying his heart out to the passers-by, police and the media that had gathered after hearing about the bizarre act. “Is it my fault that she burnt her hand? But I took the blame and paid her a compensation,” he said during his three-hour wail.

The cops sent Khatija an SoS, imploring her to save Rahim, but she did not seem to believe he would carry out the threat. “Befiqr rahiye. Wo itni aasani se marnewala nahi (Don’t worry, he is not the kind to die so easily),” she told cops on phone from Hyderabad, where she now lives.